THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


1 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 


ROMANCE  and  REALITY 


ESSAYS  AND  STUDIES 


BY 


HOLBROOK   JACKSON 


NEW  YORK 
MITCHELL   KENNERLEY 

1912 


s- 


Gorf 


TO 


FREDERICK   &   MARGARET 
RICHARDSON 


l  DO 


CONTENTS 


Utopian — 

PAGE 

Here  and  Now 

11 

Going  to  Nowhere 

17 

Southward  Ho  ! 

26 

Peterpantheism — 

Peterpantheism 

41 

Make-believe 

47 

Playthings 

55 

Festival  of  Gifts  . 

60 

Apostle  to  the  Pagans 

66 

Between  Waking  and  Awake 

72 

Readings  in  Earth — 

Winter  Glamour  . 

81 

Hedgerows 

89 

Spring          .... 

94 

Before  Dawn — 

Deserts  of  Noise  . 

.       101 

Torpor         .... 

.       106 

Hunger-tameness    . 

.       Ill 

Immortal  Russia     . 

.       117 

Introductions — 

Maurice  Maeterlinck 

.       127 

G.  K.  Chesterton  . 

.       139 

H.  G.  Wells 

.       152 

Robert  Blatchford 

.       168 

Pavlova  and  the  Dancing  Spirit 

.       182 

The    Lithographic    Portraits    of    \ 

VlLL 

Rothenstein 

.       188 

A  Note  on  Dandies 

7 

.       198 

UTOPIAN 


"  /  could  never  content  my  contemplation  with  those 
general  pieces  of  wonder,  the  Flux  and  Reflux  of  the 
Sea,  the  increase  of  Nile,  the  conversion  of  the  Needle 
to  the  North  ;  and  have  studied  to  match  and  parallel 
those  in  the  more  obvious  and  neglected  pieces  of 
nature,  which  without  travel  I  can  do  in  the  Cosmo- 
graphy of  myself  .  We  carry  with  us  the  wonders  we 
seek  without  us  :  there  is  all  Africa  and  her  prodigies 
in  us;  we  are  that  bold  and  adventurous  piece  of 
nature,  which  he  that  studies  wisely  learns  in  a  com- 
pendium what  others  labour  at  in  a  divided  piece  and 
endless  volume." — Sir  Thomas  Browne^  "  Religio 
Medici." 


HERE  AND  NOW 

1LIKE  to  do  nothing.  To  sit  by  a  fire  in 
winter,  or  in  a  garden  in  summer ;  to  loaf 
on  a  sea-beach  with  the  sun  on  me ;  to  hang 
over  the  wall  of  a  pier-head  and  watch  the  waves 
in  their  green  and  white  tantrums ;  to  sit  in  a 
brasserie  on  a  Parisian  boulevard  with  a  common 
bock,  and  the  people  moving  to  and  fro ;  to  idle  in 
parks  or  public  squares,  or  in  the  quadrangles  and 
closes  of  colleges,  or  the  Inns  of  Court,  or  the  great 
cathedrals  ;  to  forget  haste  and  effort  in  old  empty 
churches,  or  drowsy  taverns ;  to  rest  by  a  roadside 
hedge,  or  in  a  churchyard  where  sheep  browse ;  to 
lie  in  a  punt  in  the  green  shade  of  the  willows ;  to 
sit  on  a  fence — these  things  please  me  well. 

My  love  of  doing  nothing  is  deep-rooted  :  so  deep- 
rooted  that  I  have  never  thought  it  necessary  to 
argue  about  it ;  besides,  there  are  so  many  people 
arguing  about  so  many  things.  And  I  am  not  vain  ; 
I  desire  not  to  convert.  Who,  indeed,  shall  say  to 
what  faith  one  ought  to  be  converted  ?  Faith  and 
faithfulness,  to  be  sure,  are  often  separated  in  our 
time,  and  my  private  opinion  is  that  the  convertible 
are  already  converted. 

Of  course  I  work — but  I  make  no  virtue  of  that. 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

I  work  because  I  must.  I  do  not  make  this  admis- 
sion to  invite  your  sympathy.  Even  were  I  rich  I 
might  do  something,  just  to  give  a  relish  to  my  real 
aim  in  life.  ...  As  it  is,  I  work  to  provide  a  margin 
to  my  days,  a  margin  in  which  I  may  "  taste  the 
vaguely  sweet  content  of  perfect  sloth  in  limb  and 
brain." 

I  know  there  are  people  who  like  work,  and  I  am 
bound  to  respect  their  taste  ;  but  I  do  not  in  the 
least  understand  them.  They  do  tease  me  out  of 
thought,  as  doth  Eternity ;  and  I  am  silent  before 
them  as  Keats  was  before  a  greater  thing.  There 
are  many  things  we  are  forced  to  accept  with  our 
limited  perceptions ;  we  understand  very  little  in 
spite  of  our  hurrying  here  and  there,  and  of  our  vast 
knowledge.  Doubtless  work  has  rewards  unknown 
to  me :  my  powers  of  observation  may  be  faulty, 
for  most  people  seem  to  be  working  all  their  waking 
hours  ;  they  do  nothing  only  when  they  sleep,  after- 
wards they  begin  to  work  again.  I  must  conclude 
that  they  get  some  pleasure  out  of  it,  or  they  would 
not  work,  for  we  all  agree  that  ours  is  an  age  of 
freedom.  It  behoves  me,  therefore,  to  take  the 
militant  worker  for  granted. 

Still  I  am  often  tempted  to  look  more  deeply  into 
the  phenomenon  of  work,  because  if  the  love  of  work 
in  some  moves  me  to  silence,  surely  the  inclusion  of 
work  among  the  rights  of  man  ought  to  move  me 
to  tears — or  laughter.  But  I  shall  neither  weep  nor 
smile  nor  pursue  the  matter  further,  for  I  am  un- 

13 


HERE  AND   NOW 

worthy.  One  cannot  properly  understand  a  subject 
unless  one  comes  to  it  with  sympathy ;  and  I  have 
no  sympathy  for  work.  I  do  not  hold  it  among  the 
virtues. 

I  would  be  better  employed  in  considering,  nay, 
in  emulating  the  lilies  of  the  field,  who  have  con- 
founded the  wisdom  of  those  who  toil  from  the 
beginning  of  time.  Why,  I  often  ask  myself,  why 
has  this  not  been  generally  accepted  ?  And  in  my 
effort  to  answer  the  question,  I  am  forced  to  admit 
that  it  has  been  generally  accepted,  though  not 
generally  admitted.  And,  after  all,  I  may  not  be 
alone  in  my  faith  :  perhaps  the  majority  are  with  me, 
only  some  perverse  tradition  prevents  them  from 
avowing  it.     I  am,  indeed,  quite  satisfied  that 

"  Hearts  just  as  pure  and  fair 
Do  beat  in  Belgrave  Square 
As  in  the  lowly  air 

Of  Seven  Dials  !  '•'- 

The  whole  matter,  however,  is  a  mystery,  for  I  find 
that  Seven  Dials,  using  the  term  as  the  symbol  of  a 
place  where  work  is  the  sole  occupation,  is  always 
working,  without  any  very  obvious  enthusiasm  for 
the  performance  ;  whilst  Belgrave  Square,  using  the 
term  as  the  symbol  of  a  place  where  work  is  not  the 
sole  occupation,  manages  to  combine  an  elegant  idle- 
ness with  a  remarkable  moral  enthusiasm  for  work. 
The  solution  of  the  riddle  would  require  more  subtlety 
than  I  can  command ;    it  would  merely  be  a  vain 

J3 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

begging  of  the  question  were  I  to  charge  either  with 
insincerity  or  folly,  especially  in  the  light  of  the 
known  honour  and  sincerity  of  our  leisured  classes 
and  that  shrewdness  and  almost  touching  self- 
interest  which  are  the  traditional  characteristics  of 
the  workers. 

The  matter  is  further  complicated  by  the  curious 
fact,  common  to  the  most  superficial  observer,  that 
Seven  Dials  is  no  more  consistent  in  its  calling  than 
Belgrave  Square  ;  for  just  as  the  latter  can  find  time 
in  its  idleness  to  sing  the  praises  of  work,  so  Seven 
Dials  reserves  its  highest  praise  and  its  highest 
rewards  for  those  who  do  no  work.  Human  beings 
are  strange  creatures  ;  they  pride  themselves  upon 
being  distinguishable  from  what  they  call  "  the  lower 
animals  "  by  possessing  the  faculty  of  reason,  yet 
they  remain  superbly  unreasonable.  Yet,  in  the 
last  resort,  there  is  one  consistency  between  the  two 
forces  :  the  practice  of  Belgrave  Square  and  the 
taste  of  Seven  Dials  coincide,  thus  proving  that 
idleness,  either  voluntary  or  enforced,  is  a  link,  and 
perhaps  the  only  link,  between  rich  and  poor. 

Perhaps  on  this  basis  a  truce  might  be  called  in 
which  each  might  be  allowed  to  follow  his  own 
inclinations.  We  might  call  it — a  Pragmatic  Sanction 
for  Idleness.  Unless  some  such  agreement  is  ar- 
ranged, I  greatly  fear  that  rich  and  poor  may  do 
something  to  each  other  which  they  would  eternally 
regret.  Their  inconsistencies  may  make  slaves  of 
them  all.     This  would  not  matter  so  much  if  we 

14 


HERE  AND   NOW 

who  prefer  to  do  nothing  were  left  out  of  it,  but  that 
would  be  impossible,  for  slavery  is  both  infectious 
and  contagious,  and  sooner  or  later  it  afflicts  every 
citizen  in  those  States  where  it  has  gained  a  footing. 
We  are  threatened  with  the  disease  even  now,  and  I 
think  it  would  be  far  from  unwise  if  our  legislators 
considered  means  of  arranging  for  the  quarantine  of 
all  who  were  suspected  of  the  taint. 

But  I  do  not  wish  to  follow  a  question  which  for 
the  moment  does  not  affect  me.  I  am  fortunately 
placed.  The  gods  have  been  kind  to  me.  They 
have  permitted  me  to  do  just  sufficient  work,  and 
then  to  loaf,  to  dream,  to  do  nothing  !  For  this  boon 
I  should  give  praise  every  moment  of  my  life ;  and 
I  do — for  is  not  appreciation  praise  ?  Hours  of 
voluntary  idleness  are  indeed  hours  of  praise.  For 
in  such  hours  we  are  in  communion  with  the  real 
world ;  in  them  we  have  done  with  the  time  that 
passeth  away,  and  become  one  with  the  time  which 
is  eternal.  The  priests  of  old  knew  this  when  they 
instructed  their  acolytes  in  the  art  of  meditation. 
Walt  Whitman  knew  it  when  he  loafed  on  "  fish- 
shaped  Paumanok  "  observing  a  spear  of  summer 
grass  ;  Thoreau  knew  it  in  his  hut  by  Walden  Pond  ; 
William  Blake  knew  it  when  he  saw  the  angels  on 
Peckham  Rye. 

It  is  only  when  life  is  overwrought  with  the  tyranny 
of  doing  that  we  miss  the  joy  of  being ;  and  it  is  only 
the  consciousness  of  being  that  makes  us  capable  of 
any  worthy  action.     That  is  why  the  great  ones  of 

15 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

the  earth  have  always  been  men  of  a  wide  leisure, 
men  who  have  had  a  margin  to  their  days,  like  the 
margin  about  the  page  of  a  well-built  book.  The 
men  who  do  anything  worth  doing  are  just  the  men 
it  is  easiest  to  catch  doing  nothing.  But  I  did  not 
even  set  out  to  make  a  virtue  of  doing  nothing. 
Virtues  are  to  the  virtuous;  and  it  may  be  that 
some  of  us  are  unworthy  of  work  as  others  are 
certainly  unworthy  of  idleness. 

One  cannot  settle  such  questions ;  they  must  be 
left  to  settle  themselves.  So  I  end  as  I  began.  I 
like  doing  nothing,  and  the  one  who  likes  doing 
nothing  has  time  to  appreciate  everything — even 
time.  He  is  at  one  with  the  long  silences ;  kin  with 
the  world.  .  .  . 


16 


GOING  TO  NOWHERE 

I  WAS  walking  along  a  familiar  English  highroad, 
when  the  sound  of  wheels  caused  me  to  move 
unconsciously  to  the  greensward  on  the  right. 
Presently  a  friend  in  a  dogcart  appeared.  "  Hello  !  " 
he  said,  with  good-humour,  "  where  are  you  going  ?  " 
"  To  Nowhere,"  I  replied  cheerfully.  "  Oh,  thought 
you'd  like  a  lift,"  said  he,  whipping  up  his  mare  and 
getting  away  rapidly.  He  no  doubt  concluded  I  was 
in  a  churlish  mood.  But  I  was  never  less  churlish 
nor  more  truthful.  I  was  actually  going  to  No- 
where, and  that  my  admission  of  the  fact  could 
excite  ill-feeling  is  a  curious  reflection  upon  our 
times. 

But  a  moment's  thought  and  the  matter  becomes 
quite  clear.  This  is  an  age  in  which  everybody  is 
going  Somewhere,  and  Nowhere,  as  a  destination, 
has  become  a  term  of  evasion.  You  say  you  are 
going  Nowhere  to  the  over-curious,  the  inquisitive, 
and  the  word,  used  in  this  sense,  means  just  the 
opposite.  It  is  a  piece  of  protective  irony,  and  thus 
a  part  of  the  modern  convention  of  purposeful 
gadding  about. 

The  man  who  is  not  going  Somewhere  nowadays  is 
very  rare  indeed.  The  habit  is  rapidly  becoming  an 
b  17 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

instinct.  I  hardly  ever  meet  people  who  are  not 
going  Somewhere  ;  or  if  they  are  not  actually  doing 
so  it  is  merely  because  circumstances  are  against 
them  ;  they  have  work  to  do,  money  to  earn,  masters 
to  serve,  homes  to  support.  As  it  is  they  devote 
their  spare  moments  to  planning  journeys  to  remote 
places  for  the  holidays.  Journeying  has  become  a 
part  of  the  ritual  of  life.  The  wedding  trip  is  as  much 
a  circumstance  of  getting  married  as  the  honeymoon 
used  to  be ;  and  you  no  longer  hear  of  merchants 
retiring  from  business  and  taking  things  easily  ; 
they  retire  from  business,  nowadays,  to  devote  them- 
selves to  travel.  This  journeying  is  always,  as  I  say, 
purposeful ;  people  are  always  going  Somewhere ; 
and,  just  as  the  act  of  going  Somewhere  has  become 
a  kind  of  social  ritual,  so  certain  places  have  become 
the  symbols  and  impedimenta  of  the  ritual.  Their 
names  are  adorably  familiar  to  all  purposeful 
travellers — Florence  and  Rome ;  the  Bernese  Ober- 
land  and  the  Trossachs  ;  parts  of  Holland,  Belgium, 
France ;  Cairo,  Morocco,  the  Land  of  the  Midnight 
Sun  (vide  Guide-Books),  and  even,  for  the  extra 
wealthy,  Japan.  It  is  a  far-flung  list,  but  yet  a 
narrow  one,  for  the  ritual  of  going  Somewhere,  or,  to 
give  it  its  real  name,  the  art  of  the  tourist,  imposes 
upon  you  the  necessity  of  keeping  on  the  beaten 
track.  Somewhere  is  a  place  to  which  everybody 
has  been  or  "  ought "  to  go ;  it  has  been  written 
about,  praised,  defined. 

Now  when  I  say  that  I  prefer  going  to  Nowhere,  I 

18 


GOING  TO  NOWHERE 

would  not  have  you  jump  to  the  conclusion  that  I 
am  a  contrary  person.  Were  you  to  do  so  you  would 
do  me  an  injustice.  Nowhere  is  simply  my  favourite 
destination,  and  I  get  so  much  pleasure  in  going  there, 
that  it  is  not  easy  for  me  to  imagine  why  people  put 
themselves  to  so  much  trouble  in  going  elsewhere. 
Perhaps  it  is  all  due  to  the  rapidity  and  cheapness  of 
modern  travel  conditions.  You  merely  push  a  little 
money  through  a  pigeon-hole  in  a  railway  station, 
and  utter  the  name  of  the  desired  Somewhere,  when 
lo  !  like  the  result  of  an  occult  incantation,  a  slip  of 
pasteboard  will  drop  into  your  hand,  which  in  turn, 
by  the  simple  process  of  showing  it  to  a  number  of 
uniformed  men,  will  be  the  means  of  translating  you 
to  the  place  where  you  would  be.  Who  would  not 
be  overcome  by  such  a  magic  ?  Yet  I  have  a  magic, 
beside  which  the  magic  of  touring  slips  into  the 
limbo  of  futile  things.  Let  me  tell  you  of  it ;  not 
for  the  sake  of  conversion,  but  out  of  gratitude. 

My  magic  is  involved  in  going  to  Nowhere,  which 
is  quite  a  different  thing  to  not  going  Anywhere. 
Others  know  of  it,  but  they  keep  quiet.  They  are 
in  no  hurry,  in  the  patois  of  commerce,  to  let  the 
public  in.  But  I  dislike  such  privacy  and  break  it 
down  wherever  I  can.  The  difficulty,  however,  in 
this  case  is  greater  than  usual,  for  money  will  not 
buy  the  requirements  for  the  journey  to  Nowhere. 
You  either  have  them  or  lack  them,  and  there  is  an 
end  of  the  matter.  Neither  are  they  the  things  you 
throw  into  a  ruck-sack  at  the  last  moment,  though 

19 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

to  be  sure  such  things  are  not  to  be  despised  even  by 
the  Nowherer.  They  are  the  strange  things  a  man 
carries  in  the  cells  of  his  brain  or  beneath  the  wings 
of  his  imagination.  They  are  no  more  tangible  than 
these,  and  yet  they  have  all  the  authority  of  money,  as 
well  as  the  grip  of  that  which  religious  people  under- 
stand by  a  call,  which  is  something  greater  than  money. 

Once  you  possess  these  things  you  may  safely  set 
out  to  Nowhere.  And  then  the  miracle  will  happen, 
in  this  wise  :  Somewhere  will  come  to  you  !  For  I 
have  invariably  found  that  in  persistently  going  to 
Nowhere  you  not  only  ignore  the  object  of  travel, 
which  is  to  get  Somewhere,  but  you  actually  accom- 
plish the  fact  by  reversing  the  process.  In  going  to 
Nowhere,  Somewhere  let  me  repeat,  indeed  Every- 
where, comes  to  you.  This  is  no  vain  paradox ; 
it  is  a  mild  statement  of  common  fact,  and  because 
of  this,  and  for  no  other  reason,  it  sounds  astounding. 

Everybody  knows  that  even  the  adorable  destina- 
tions of  tourists  rarely  come  up  to  expectations. 
Somehow  or  other  it  is  the  places  by  the  wayside 
upon  which  the  lingering  eye  is  cast.  And  at  this 
let  us  cease  to  wonder,  for  we  are  near  the  heart  of 
the  mystery.  The  most  beautiful  places  are  not 
those  which  you  go  to  see  deliberately,  but  those 
which  visit  you.  They  are  the  places  which  rise 
out  of  the  shadowy  plain  to  greet  you  unawares  ; 
the  places  that  steal  upon  you  like  dreams,  that  flood 
your  vision  like  sunlight.  They  are,  like  all  memor- 
able things,  the  places  that  happen.     If  you  go  to 

20 


GOING   TO  NOWHERE 

meet  them  you  are  almost  certain  to  miss  them ; 
for  they  are  coy  and  shy,  like  beauty  or  joy,  or  a 
maiden  new  to  love.  You  pursue  them  and  they 
retreat  before  you.  But  just  wait  awhile  and  they 
will  peep  at  you  over  the  hill-tops  or  between  the 
pines  :  you  will  feel  their  presence  stealing  upon  you 
like  a  new  joy,  and  in  a  flash  you  will  see  a  vision, 
and  that  vision  is  the  vision  of  Nowhere. 

This  experience  comes  rarely  or  not  at  all  to  those 
who  are  for  ever  going  Somewhere.  The  material 
of  such  experiences,  to  be  sure,  exists  everywhere, 
but  constant  harping  on  approved  destinations 
blunts  the  faculty  of  vision  ;  and  this  is  a  great  loss 
to  those  who  go  a-journeying.  And  it  is  not  only  the 
person  who  goes  Somewhere  who  is  damaged  by  the 
act.  Somewhere  also  is  injured.  Deterioration  is 
contagious,  and  places  are  destroyed  or  renovated  by 
the  spirit  of  the  people  who  go  to  them.  I  know  as 
fair  an  island  as  ever  graced  the  sea.  Once  that 
island  was  Nowhere,  and  in  those  days  it  was  peopled 
by  fisher-folk  and  farmers  who  spoke  their  own 
language,  sang  their  own  songs,  told  each  other  their 
own  tales,  and  provided  each  other  with  their  own 
natural  food  :  the  fish  of  the  sea,  the  sheep  of  the 
pastures,  and  the  fruit  of  the  plains.  Since  then  the 
delectable  island  has  become  Somewhere,  and  its 
people  are  no  longer  fishermen  and  farmers ;  most 
of  them  are  touts  and  flunkeys,  attending  and  ex- 
ploiting a  strange,  noisy  people  for  one-third  of  the 
year,  and  awaiting  the  return  of  the  strangers  for 

si 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

the  rest.  They  are  forgetting  their  own  tongue, 
songs  and  tales,  as  they  talk  more  and  more  the 
language,  sing  more  and  more  the  ditties  and  read 
more  and  more  the  newspapers  of  the  invaders. 
There  are  also  other  signs  of  evil,  but  anyone  can 
see  these  in  any  Somewhere,  so  I  will  save  my  ink 
for  less  obvious  things.  My  island  is  but  one 
example  of  a  modern  ill  which  is  spreading  over  the 
whole  earth  ;  no  fair  place  is  immune  ;  those  who 
gad  about  settle  upon  them  like  a  blight,  and  peace 
and  beauty  shrink  before  their  advance. 

For  that  and  for  other  reasons  I  go  to  Nowhere. 

Anyone  can  go  a  journey,  but  every  journey  is  a 
pilgrimage  for  those  who  go  to  Nowhere.  To  set 
out  for  Nowhere  requires  courage,  therefore  those 
who  go  there  may  be  said  to  be  alive.  They  are 
ready  to  take  their  chance  and  do  not  barter  with  a 
guide-book  for  promises  of  scenery,  antiquities,  or 
other  conventional  reward,  at  the  end  of  the  day's 
march.  Enough  for  them  the  open  road  and  the 
things  life  offers  by  the  wayside.  The  violet  shadows 
of  the  woodland  path  flecked  with  silver  light ;  the 
tonic  breath  of  the  heath  and  the  smell  of  peat ;  the 
shrill  green  of  the  new  fronds  among  the  crumpled 
tan  of  last  year's  bracken ;  the  staccato  flutter  of 
hurried  wings  in  the  hedgerows  ;  the  fragrance  of 
hay  and  cattle  from  the  shippens ;  the  buildings 
mellowed  by  time ;  the  roll  of  down  and  the  sway 
and  rhythm  of  the  sea ;  the  murmuring  music  of 
dingles  full  of  leaves,  faint  breezes,  birds,  and  bees 

22 


GOING   TO   NOWHERE 

and  lapping  waters  ;  the  arrogance  of  mountains, 
and  the  hovering  loneliness  of  sky-swept  plains ; 
these  are  the  treasures  Life  offers  to  him  who  goes 
forth  to  Nowhere. 

But  Nowhere  is  not  only  to  be  sought  in  country 
places  or  by  the  sea  ;  to  believe  that  would  be  to  join 
issue  with  those  absurd  people  who  insist  upon 
separating  man  and  his  works  from  Nature  and  her 
works,  which  is  like  separating  the  tree  from  its 
leaves,  or  the  bird  from  its  nest.  All  the  things 
made  by  man  are  as  much  a  part  of  nature  as  the 
things  you  read  about  in  the  natural  history  books. 
And  deep  in  the  heart  of  his  masterpiece,  the  city, 
hides  also  the  genius  of  Nowhere.  No  one  knew  this 
better  than  Charles  Dickens,  who  devoted,  literally, 
years  to  tramping  to  Nowhere  in  London,  and  the 
results  are  to  be  found  in  that  immortal  series  of 
novels  which  constitute  the  Iliad  of  the  Metropolis. 
And  when  wise  old  Dr  Johnson  set  a  walk  down 
Fleet  Street  against  a  walk  to  any  Somewhere  in 
England,  he  knew  quite  well,  although  Boswell  has 
not  recorded  the  fact,  that  the  Nowhere  of  Fleet 
Street  was  the  whole  world. 

I  know  not  how  many  times  I  have  walked  to 
Nowhere  in  London,  but  this  I  do  know,  that  every 
time  I  have  done  so  some  new  revelation  of  the  great 
city-county  has  come  to  me.  London  is  strangely 
elusive  to  the  tourist.  Indeed,  I  know  of  no  place, 
save  Paris,  which  eludes  those  who  come  to  see  her 
so   effectually   as   London.     She   deliberately   lures 

23 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

them  from  her  track  by  throwing  what  are  popularly 
known  as  "  sights "  in  their  way.  And  they  go 
back  to  the  provinces  thinking  they  have  seen  her, 
when  they  have  only  seen  the  Tower,  Crystal  and 
Buckingham  Palaces,  the  Poets'  Corner,  Madame 
Tussaud's,  and  such  things  as  your  proper  Londoner 
has  only  heard  of  but  never  seen.  Paris  also  tricks 
the  tourist  after  her  manner  by  showing  him  sordid 
and  wearisome  things  called  "  pleasures,"  which 
have  very  little  to  do  with  the  real  life  of  the  sober 
and  industrious  capital  of  France. 

Yes,  a  thousand  pitfalls  and  boredoms  await  the 
tourist,  but  he  who  goes  to  Nowhere  is  immune  from 
such  evils.  He  is  under  a  spell  which  is  irresistible. 
It  is  as  though  he  were  set  apart,  like  a  knight-errant 
in  an  age  devoid  of  such  orders.  Indeed,  as  yet,  these 
essential  saunterers,  wayfarers,  ramblers  or  whatever 
you  may  call  them,  are  not  conscious  of  their  aim  or 
condition,  neither  do  they  know  one  another  by 
name.  But,  scattered  and  nameless  as  they  are 
among  men,  a  subtle  bond  links  them  together  in  an 
informal  fellowship,  and  by  chance  signs  they  come 
to  know  each  other  when  they  meet  on  the  open  road. 
The  Holy  Grail  lies  in  Nowhere,  and  those  who  go 
thither  must  needs  belong  to  the  same  fellowship. 

I  never  yet  felt  lonely  on  my  journeys  to  Nowhere. 
Still  it  is  pleasant  to  think  that  there  are  others  going 
my  way  and  that  perchance  we  shall  meet  if  not  there 
at  least  on  the  road.  Occasionally  we  have  met  and 
spoken,  as  they  say  of  ships  on  the  High  Seas.  One  of 

24 


GOING   TO   NOWHERE 

these  days,  in  sooth,  I  am  quite  prepared  to  find  that 
the  fellowship  is  much  larger  than  I  thought.  Why 
not? 

Everyone  who  is  engaged  in  the  great  pilgri  mage 
of  Life — and  what  better  thing  can  happen  to  any 
of  us  ? — is  marching  to  the  same  goal.  It  is  the  goa 
which  is  the  repudiation  of  all  goals,  the  great  path- 
less way,  unnamed  on  maps,  unpraised  in  guide- 
books ;  it  is  the  goal  to  which  every  man  is  destined. 
But  most  men  prefer  to  go  Somewhere,  they  have  so 
little  faith.  How  fruitless  are  their  efforts  they  them- 
selves will  tell  you.  Nowhere  is  akin  to  wisdom,  it  is 
the  wisdom  of  place,  and  like  wisdom  the  merchandise 
of  it  is  better  than  the  merchandise  of  silver,  and 
the  gain  thereof  than  fine  gold.  Its  beauties  are  real 
and  enduring,  yet  they  are  not  to  be  set  down  in 
words.  Some  say  they  have  been  revealed  in  music, 
but  I  doubt  it.  Nowhere  has  been  defined  in 
the  happy  bearing  of  those  who  have  been  there. 
Perhaps  some  day  a  great  change  will  come  over 
humanity,  and  all  rushing  hither  and  thither  will 
cease.  All  the  guide  -  books  will  be  burnt,  and 
scenery  and  antiquities  will  no  longer  be  sought  by 
weary  tourists.  In  that  hour  shall  Nowhere  be  dis- 
covered. 


*5 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 


THOSE  who  remember  Liverpool  before  the 
multi -domed  Dock  Offices  and  the  sky- 
scraper of  the  Royal  Liver  Insurance  Com- 
pany flaunted  themselves  on  the  pier-head,  over- 
topping the  tallest  spars  of  the  fleetest  barques  of 
the  South  Sea  trade,  and  making  even  the  colossal 
red  funnels  of  the  Mauretania  look  like  tovs,  will 
remember  also  the  St  George's  Dock.  And  if  they 
are  further  touched  with  a  sentimental  regard  for  old 
familiar  things,  as  which  of  us  is  not,  they  will  no 
doubt  resent  somewhat  the  intrusion  of  those 
arrogant  monsters  of  iron  and  stone,  modern  hybrids 
of  building  construction,  half  engineering  and  half 
architecture,  usurping  the  place  of  that  same  old 
rectangular  basin  of  muddy  green  water.  For  do 
they  not  stand  precisely  where  it  once  stood  ?  Are 
they  not  the  monstrous  gravestones  of  the  cosiest 
dock  in  the  whole  world  ? 

Well,  it  was  in  this  dock,  in  the  corner  beside  the 
swing  bridge  which  used  to  connect  James  Street 
with  Mann  Island,  in  the  shadow  of  the  Goree 
Piazzas,  that  I  first  beheld  the  craft  which  after- 

26 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

wards  took  me  to  the  South  Seas.  I  was  just  out 
of  my  teens  and  had  come  over  the  water  from  the 
Cheshire  side  and  was  crossing  from  Mann  Island 
into  the  City  of  Ships.  I  had  passed  the  hut  where 
the  ancient  gentleman  sells  cheap  Bibles  and  Testa- 
ments and  other  accounts  of  the  True  Faith,  and  stood 
turning  over  the  battered  volumes  on  the  stall  of 
the  second-hand  bookseller  which  at  that  time  stood 
in  a  row  of  stalls,  most  of  which  displayed  glowing 
pyramids  of  oranges  and  apples  presided  over  by 
plump  old  dames  with  immobile,  wind-tanned  faces, 
who  seemed  to  do  nothing  but  sit  staring  all  day  at 
the  pleasant  row  of  sailors'  dram-shops  opposite. 
Even  in  those  days  I  had  a  keen  scent  for  a  good 
book,  and  almost  the  first  I  touched  on  the  stall 
was  a  musty  copy  of  "  Typee,"  by  Herman  Melville. 
I  had  never  heard  of  it  before,  but  was  attracted  by 
the  name.  "  Typee,"  I  murmured,  "  Typee  suggests 
something  childlike  and  exotic,"  and  turning  over 
the  pages  I  came  across  this  passage  : 

"  There  were  none  of  those  thousand  sources  of 
irritation  that  the  ingenuity  of  civilised  man  has 
created  to  mar  his  own  felicitv.  There  were  no 
foreclosures  of  mortgages,  no  protested  notes, 
no  bills  payable,  no  debts  of  honour,  in  Typee ; 
no  unreasonable  tailors  and  shoemakers,  perversely 
bent  on  being  paid  ;  no  duns  of  any  description  ;  no 
assault  and  battery  attorneys,  to  foment  discord, 
backing  their  clients  up  to  a  quarrel,  and  then  knock- 

27 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

ing  their  heads  together ;  no  poor  relations  ever- 
lastingly occupying  the  spare  bedchamber,  and 
diminishing  the  elbow-room  at  the  family  table ; 
no  destitute  widows  with  their  children  starving 
on  the  cold  charities  of  the  world ;  no  beggars ;  no 
debtors'  prison  ;  no  proud  and  hard-hearted  nabobs 
in  Typee ;  or,  to  sum  up  all  in  one  word — no 
money  !  That '  root  of  all  evil '  was  not  to  be  found 
in  the  valley." 

"  A  sort  of  Socialist  Utopia,"  I  thought,  and  dipped 
again.     I  caught  this  the  second  time  : 

"  To  begin  with  the  morning.  We  were  not  very 
early  risers — the  sun  would  be  shooting  his  golden 
spikes  above  the  Kappar  mountains  ere  I  drew  aside 
my  tappa  robe,  and,  girding  my  long  tunic  about 
my  waist,  sallied  out  with  Fayaway  and  Kory-Kory 
and  the  rest  of  the  household,  and  bent  my  steps 
towards  the  stream.  Here  we  found  congregated 
all  those  who  dwelt  in  our  section  of  the  valley  ;  and 
here  we  bathed  with  them.  The  fresh  morning  air 
and  cool  flowing  waters  put  both  soul  and  body  in  a 
glow,  and  after  a  half -hour  employed  in  this  recreation, 
we  sauntered  back  to  the  house — Tinor  and  Marheyo 
gathering  dry  sticks  by  the  way  for  firewood  ;  some 
of  the  young  men  laying  the  cocoa-nut  trees  under 
contribution,  as  they  passed  beneath  them ;  while 
Kory-Kory  played  his  outlandish  pranks  for  my 
particular  diversion,  and  Fayaway  and  I,  not  arm- 

28 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

in-arm,  to  be  sure,  but  sometimes  hand-in-hand, 
strolled  along,  with  feelings  of  perfect  charity  for  all  the 
world,  and  especially  good-will  towards  each  other." 

"  How  much  ?  "  I  inquired  of  the  patient  merchant. 

"  Threepence,"  said  he. 

As  I  crossed  the  swing  bridge  I  saw,  lying  in  her 
accustomed  berth,  the  schooner  Eostre,  as  I  had  seen 
her  many  times  on  her  periodical  visits,  for  this 
corner  berth  seemed  hers  by  historic  right,  like  the 
berths  of  the  Dutch  Eel-Schuyts  in  the  Pool  of 
London  by  Billingsgate  Wharf.  She  looked  just 
the  same  as  ever,  neither  older  nor  younger,  indeed 
she  had  reached  that  age  when  time  seems  to  pass  by 
unheeding  and  unheeded,  as  is  often  the  case  with 
hearty  old  women.  Her  grey  mainsail  flapped  loosely 
and  untidily,  with  its  square  brown  patch  in  the 
right-hand  corner,  as  it  always  did  when  she  was  in 
dock  ;  and  her  blue-jerseyed  crew  were  disembarking 
her  familiar  cargo  of  bundles  of  boardlike  salted  fish. 
Her  sides,  as  usual,  were  almost  guiltless  of  paint, 
and  inclined  to  portliness  ;  they  bulged,  unnaturally 
for  a  schooner,  from  a  square  stern,  on  which  was 
painted  in  yellow  letters  on  a  blue  ground,  "  Eostre — 
Christiania"  but  they  made  amends  by  tapering 
rather  gracefully  to  the  bows,  from  which  a  new  jib 
shot  out  with  obvious  coquetry.  I  recrossed  the 
bridge  late  that  evening  with  "  Typee  "  in  my  pocket, 
which  I  had  been  devouring  all  the  afternoon  at 
the  risk  of  commercial  disaster  in  a  fragrant  smoking 

29 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

cafe,  and  on  my  way  to  the  pier-head  I  had  bought 
at  a  bookshop  "  Omoo,"  which,  I  learned  from  the 
title-page  of  "  Typee,"  was  by  the  same  author. 
The  Eostre  still  lay  at  her  berth,  but  a  light  now  shone 
into  the  twilight  from  her  binnacle,  and  only  one  of 
her  crew  was  in  sight ;  he  leaned  over  the  starboard 
side  meditatively  watching  the  traffic  on  Mann 
Island,  puffing  a  pipe  and  spitting  into  the  dock. 
That  night  I  went  to  bed  early,  propped  myself  up 
with  pillows,  placed  the  light  in  a  convenient  position, 
read  "  Typee  "  to  the  end  and  "  Omoo  "  half  through 
before  the  guttering  of  the  candle  forced  me  to  close 
my  smarting  eyes  on  the  glories  of  the  South  Seas. 

II 

Doubtless  there  are  people  who,  having  read 
"  Typee,"  are  not  moved  with  an  urgent  desire  to 
take  ship  for  the  Marquesas,  but  I  have  yet  to  hear 
of  them.  But  there  can  be  none  in  the  early  twenties 
who  are  so  tame.  Anyhow  I  was  not  of  their  number. 
I  had  barely  got  half  through  the  book  when  the 
South  Seas  filled  my  imagination  with  an  over- 
powering longing.  I  seemed  to  have  known  them 
all  my  life ;  Herman  Melville,  most  delightful  and 
discursive  of  chroniclers,  simply  relit  my  memory. 
He  made  it  all  quite  clear  and  revealed  my  destiny. 
My  longing  was  no  vague  desire  for  novelty,  it  was 
simply  homesickness. 

It  all  came  back  to  me  in  the  cafe  between  the 

30 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

dream-pauses  of  my  reading ;  I  felt  like  a  foreigner 
whose  mind  constantly  harked  back  homewards. 
Vision  after  vision  of  the  luscious  archipelagoes  of 
Polynesia  flashed  across  my  mind.  My  thoughts 
were  a  perpetual  cinematograph  of  lagooned  islands 
in  wine-deep  seas ;  of  palm-trees  rising  above  the 
eternal  surf  of  the  endless  Pacific  ;  of  forests  gar- 
landed with  flowers  ;  of  palm-leaf  houses,  cocoa-nuts, 
yams,  bananas,  and  bread-fruit ;  of  lithe  men  beauti- 
fully tattooed  in  strange  arabesques  of  blue  and  green 
and  red  ;  and  of  olive  women  with  red,  laughing 
mouths  and  bright,  soft  eyes — a  cleanly,  idle,  gentle 
folk,  who  did  nothing  in  the  world  but  live,  rounding 
off  their  perfect  lives  by  occasionally  eating  one 
another. 

Ill 

There  are  several  ways  of  going  to  the  South 
Seas.  You  may  travel  over  the  great  antipodean 
ferries  in  floating  hotels,  from  London  or  Liverpool, 
through  the  Mediterranean  and  the  Suez  Canal,  the 
Red  Sea  and  the  Indian  Ocean,  or  round  the  Cape  of 
Good  Hope.  Or  you  may  cross  over  the  Atlantic 
Ferry  to  New  York,  from  thence  going  overland  to 
San  Francisco,  where  you  may  again  ship  comfort- 
ably. Or,  better,  you  may  take  the  old  route  of  the 
navigators  round  the  Horn,  meeting  the  icy  gales, 
smelling  the  Antarctic  almost,  as  a  vantage  and  a 
standard  for  future  contrasts,  when  the  good  ship 
turns  her  nose  up  to  the  Line.     That  way  went  I ; 

31 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

but  in  no  ocean-going  Savoy  or  Carlton.  I  roughed 
it  deliciously  in  the  Eostre,  who,  as  long  as  I  could 
remember,  had  been  beating  the  channels  of  the 
British  archipelago,  exchanging  at  Christiania  and 
Liverpool  cargoes  of  dried  fish  and  the  factored  goods 
of  Lancashire  and  Yorkshire. 


IV 

Southward  Ho  !  What  greater  joy  than  in  those 
words  !  Down  the  Mersey  we  tacked  on  a  high  tide  ; 
and  I  watched  with  riotous  glee  the  towers  and  domes 
of  the  great  city  fade  behind  us.  The  river  tossed 
and  tumbled,  scattering  spindrift  like  confetti  of 
silver.  Over  towards  the  North  Fort  we  sped, 
peeped  into  the  mouths  of  the  big  guns,  and  with  a 
fluttering  of  patched  sails,  tacked  and  scurried  across 
towards  the  Perch  Rock  Battery,  bidding  adieu  as 
it  were  to  the  watch-dogs  of  Liverpool,  and  so  out 
into  the  Channel ;  and  I  turned  and  saw  old  England 
dissolve  itself  into  the  nothing  it  had  become  for  me. 
Rio  first ;  then,  in  an  heroic  curve,  we  tacked  down 
to  the  Plate,  glimpsed  into  Buenos  Ayres  for  water 
and  fresh  meat,  and  off  round  the  Horn  on  swift 
mysterious  wings.  No  storm  checked  the  little 
weather-ripened  Eostre.  It  was  like  a  dream,  I  kept 
saying,  and  our  tiny  schooner,  bearing  the  name 
of  a  goddess,  fore  and  aft,  was  a  ship  o'  dreams.  I 
sprang  on  to  her  prow  as  we  rounded  the  historic 
cape,  and  looked  ecstatically  at  the  Queen  of  Oceans. 

32 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

There  before  me  she  lay,  league  after  shimmering 
league,  incalculable,  illimitable,  invincible,  wearing, 
as  I  knew,  over  her  heart,  the  clustered  jewels  of  the 
Marquesas. 

It  was  Northward  Ho  !  now,  but  northward  in  the 
rich  South  Seas.  Flying-fish  leaped  out  of  the  blue- 
green  swell  before  us,  as  if  the  Eostre  were  a  faery 
boat  and  they  her  steeds  ;  and  behind  floated  a  milk- 
white  albatross,  like  an  attendant  beautiful  aero- 
plane. The  ghostly  bird  took  a  fancy  to  us  outside 
the  Rio  Plato  and  never  left  us  till  we  sighted  our 
Hesperides.  Ever  and  anon  Leviathan  rose  out  of 
the  deep  in  the  vast  arena  of  ocean  through  which 
we  sailed,  coming  into  existence  like  a  phantom 
island,  spouting  aloft  a  cascade  of  spray  which  would 
have  put  the  fountains  of  Versailles  to  shame,  and 
then,  beating  the  Pacific  with  monstrous  horizontal 
tail,  was  gone  to  reveal,  anon,  his  slate-grey  form  a 
dozen  miles  away. 

These  were  the  incidents  of  our  voyage,  the 
'  sights "  of  the  ocean.  These  and  the  eternal 
memories  of  the  great  navigators,  Cook,  Vancouver, 
Cabot,  and  the  rest,  and  best  of  all,  Mendana,  who 
discovered  the  Marquesas.  They  were  no  longer 
memories,  however,  but  realities.  The  South  Seas 
are  theirs,  their  ships  surrounded  us,  a  motley 
flotilla  of  all  ages,  beckoning,  speeding,  hailing  our 
ship  o'  dreams.  Presently  we  sped  along  those 
highways  of  the  southern  ocean,  the  Trade  Winds ; 
with  all  sails  spread  we  were  hurled  by  the  great 
c  33 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

forces,  day  after  day,  into  the  tropical  heat,  as  if  we 
were  sailing  into  the  sun ;  night  after  starry  night,  with 
the  Southern  Cross  above  and  strange  constellations 
dancing  and  singing  around  us.  And  then,  lo  !  a 
mystery !  The  air  was  transfigured !  Not  alone 
the  salt  breath  of  the  mighty  ocean  Queen,  but  a 
warm  fragrance  to  which  the  salt  was  but  savour. 
All  the  gardens  of  the  Riviera  and  Surrey,  the  Tyrol 
in  spring,  England  in  Maytime,  distilled  into  one 
voluptuous  scent,  and  steeped  in  odours  new  and 
strange.  No  land  in  sight ;  nothing  but  the  encir- 
cling sea,  the  flying-fish,  the  albatross,  the  big  whales, 
and  the  swift  glancing  of  the  shark.  But  we  knew 
what  it  was.  It  was  the  Marquesas  calling  to  us ; 
it  was  the  spirit  of  Typee,  the  home  of  Fayaway, 
it  was  the  voice  of  the  Syrens  distilled  into  a  magical 
fragrance,  greeting  the  Eostre. 

Presently  they  rose  out  of  the  ocean.  A  huddle 
of  purple  hills  in  the  sea  ;  and  as  we  drew  near  they 
changed  colour  with  every  league,  as  though  they 
signalled  us.  Purple,  mauve,  blue,  green,  opal, 
mother-of-pearl.  Then  they  assumed  form  and 
detail.  Forests  running  up  the  sides  of  mountains ; 
deep  valleys,  luscious  and  dark.  Nearer  still  we 
came,  with  eyes,  ears,  nostrils  strained  to  meet  them. 
I  saw,  heard,  smelt  the  wonderland.  Curves  of 
roaring  surf ;  air  like  that  of  a  Yorkshire  moor ; 
and  a  palisade  of  palms,  leaning  towards  the  lagoon 
or  holding  aloft  their  feathered  heads  like  noble 
dames.     We  did  not  put  into  the  larger  islands  of 

34 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

Hivaoa  or  Nukahiva,  but  sallied  farther  north  to  the 
cluster  of  islets  of  the  Washington  Group  where  the 
natives  are  less  affected  by  the  customs  of  their 
French  masters. 


And  at  length  the  voyage  ended.  A  little  island 
was  our  destination ;  it  stood  on  the  very  frontier 
of  the  Marquesas,  rising  out  of  the  sea  as  easily  as 
Leviathan,  but  permanently  and  beautifully.  Per- 
haps they  knew  I  was  coming,  I  could  have  believed 
anything  of  the  Marquesans.  They  guessed  it  was 
no  mere  trader,  no  potential  beach-comber,  but  me, 
the  Marquesan,  lost  in  the  great  universe,  exiled 
through  countless  incarnations,  homing  at  last ! 
It  was  a  mystery  and  they  understood.  Anyhow 
they  came  out  to  meet  us ;  outside  the  reef  the  sea 
was  populous  with  canoes,  some  few  with  lateen 
sails,  but  most  of  them  propelled  by  paddles.  We 
sailed  slowly  through  them  like  a  monarch  through 
her  courtiers.  I  noted  how  the  carved  bows  of  the 
canoes  were  newly  painted  in  bright  dyes,  and  how 
nearly  all  were  decked  with  leaves  and  flowers. 
Slowly  we  glided  through  the  doorway  of  the  reef 
into  the  still  chrysoprase  of  the  lagoon,  the  canoes 
following,  and  the  water  about  us  full  of  swimming 
youths  and  maidens.  Diving,  floating,  splashing, 
laughing,  they  encircled  the  Eostre,  like  irresponsible 
angels  who  had  somehow  got  into  a  misplaced  heaven, 

35 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

or  a  rightly  placed  one  for  all  I  knew.  I  watched  their 
mad  capers.  Marvellously  active  they  were,  darting 
under  the  surface  like  fish,  their  lithe  bodies  flashing 
like  polished  shagreen,  the  long  dark  hair  of  the  girls 
streaming  behind  them  as  they  rushed  along,  or 
curling  about  them  as  they  turned  and  rose,  laughing, 
with  flashing  teeth. 

Then  with  a  rattle  of  chains  the  anchor  dropped 
to  the  coral  bed  of  the  lagoon ;  I  descended  into 
a  waiting  canoe  and  was  paddled  swiftly  ashore. 
Surrounded  by  joyous  and  inquisitive  crowds,  men 
graceful  and  symmetrical,  some  bearded  and  their 
beards  plaited,  or  cut  short  and  square  and  pointed, 
smooth  limbed,  easy  of  carriage,  briefly  clad.  Women 
in  loose  white  tappa  robes  revealing  here  and  there 
glimpses  of  olive  bodies  which  they  declared  with  the 
frankness  such  beauty  deserved  ;  hair  long,  straight, 
and  dark,  and  into  the  tresses  were  woven  the  scarlet 
flowers  of  the  hybiscus.  which  contrasted  delightfully 
with  full,  dark  eyes,  smiling  with  the  vital  smiles  of 
superb  health  and  natural  joy. 

VI 

So  I  was  there  at  last.  I  looked  around  me  at  the 
forests  which  came  down  to  the  beach,  at  the  cocoa- 
palms,  at  the  little  tent-like  houses  of  bamboo 
thatched  with  palmetto  leaves ;  and  as  I  walked 
along  to  the  chief's  house,  I  noted  the  colour  of  the 
woods.     They  were  not  green,  like  the  woods  of 

36 


SOUTHWARD   HO! 

England,  but  rainbow-hued ;  the  very  shadows 
were  painted  like  the  wings  of  a  butterfly.  All  the 
trees  seemed  linked  together  with  garlands  of 
flowers.  Strange  birds  sang  and  hopped  and 
fluttered  before  me.  Insects  of  metallic  lustre 
sported  in  the  sun.-  The  bamboos  rattled  on  either 
hand,  and  the  Marquesans  laughed  and  shouted ; 
some  ran  and  jumped ;  others  gathered  bread-fruit 
and  cocoa-nuts  ;  some  spanked  each  other  with  long 
palmetto  leaves.  I  saw  no  signs  of  work,  nothing 
but  idleness  and  play.  I  sighed  out  of  very  joy ; 
here  I  was  at  last,  free  for  ever  of  the  fever  and  fret 
of  England,  where  one  puts  on  clothes  because  of 
the  cold,  where  one  works  because  one  must,  and 
hypocritically  says  one  likes  it ;  I  laughed  joyfully 
with  the  Marquesans.  I  could  have  embraced  them 
all,  I  was  so  happy.  As  we  neared  the  big  house  of 
the  chief  on  the  hillside,  raised  on  its  pi-pi  of  stones, 
another  crowd  ran  to  meet  us ;  they  scattered 
flowers  as  they  came,  and  ahead  of  them  sped  the 
most  beautiful  damsel  of  them  all.  Quickly  they 
came  on,  and  straight  she  made  for  me.  At  first  I 
felt  nervous.  Then,  as  she  drew  nearer,  I  seemed 
to  recognise  her.  It  was  Fayaway,  the  beautiful 
Fayaway  of  Typee,  Herman  Melville's  lovely  savage. 
She  approached,  laughing,  panting,  in  a  shower  of 
flowers,  laid  two  soft  hands  in  mine,  held  up  her  red 
lips — and  then,  then,  as  they  say,  I  woke  up. 


37 


PETERPANTHEISM 


"  Be  young,  dear  my  soul :  soon  will  others  be  men,  and 
I  being  dead  shall  be  dark  earth." — From  the  Greek  Anthology, 
J.  W.  Mackail's  translation. 


PETERPANTHEISM 

WHAT  ill  turn  in  the  trend  of  evolution  gave 
man  the  aspiration  to  grow  up  ?  It  must 
have  been  an  evil  chance,  for  the  secret 
desire  of  all  is  for  eternal  youth.  No  one  surely  who 
had  his  will  of  life  would  dream  of  growing  up,  and 
yet  we  all  not  only  do  it,  but  succeed  in  persuading 
ourselves  that  we  like  doing  it. 

We  have  even  gone  so  far  as  to  wean  the  imagina- 
tions of  children  from  their  rightful  heritage  and  make 
them  wish  to  become  big,  like  father,  or  good,  like 
mother.  These  ambitions  are  now  commonplaces 
of  childish  imagination.  But  in  spite  of  it  all,  the 
evidence  is  still  against  growing  up.  The  purpose 
of  the  child  is  to  live,  to  feel  the  mysterious  presence 
of  life  in  every  limb,  and  in  so  far  as  he  does  this  he 
is  happy.  But  the  purpose  of  the  adult  has  become 
a  febrile  pursuit  of  the  symbols  of  life.  Real  life 
fills  him  with  dread,  and  success  in  his  endeavour  is 
his  undoing. 

Age  is  a  tragedy ;  and  the  elderly  person  strives 
heroically  to  make  the  best  of  it  by  covering  his 
retreat  with  pathetic  attempts  at  superiority  and 
wisdom,  little  arrogances  and  vanities  which  at 
bottom  deceive  nobody,  not  even  himself.     For  well 

4i 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

he  knows,  as  he  casts  wistful  glances  at  the  pranks 
of  childhood,  that  in  spite  of  his  imposing  cry  of 
"  Eureka !  "  he  has  found  nothing.  What  profit 
has  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole  world  but  lose  his 
own  youth  ?  Perhaps,  indeed,  it  would  be  more 
becoming  in  those  who  have  grown  up  to  admit  the 
fact  with  fitting  lamentation  and  humility,  and, 
instead  of  flaunting  their  age  with  pomp  and  circum- 
stance, cover  their  bodies  with  sackcloth  and  put 
ashes  in  their  hair. 

The  great  difficulty,  however,  is  that  men  persist, 
in  spite  of  bitter  experience,  in  looking  upon  growing 
up  as  a  worthy  thing.  Women  are  their  superiors 
in  this  respect.  Intuitively  they  know  that  age  is  a 
cul-de-$ae>  that  it  leads  not  even  to  heaven,  for  to  get 
there  one  has  to  become  as  a  little  child.  This, 
probably,  is  why  most  women  disown  the  passing 
years. 

Still  even  they  grow  up ;  indeed,  are  not  women 
always  a  little  older  than  men  ?  Both  nature  and 
society  seem  to  have  conspired  to  make  them  so. 
But  that  is  no  excuse.  Human  beings  ought  not 
to  be  content  to  remain  the  slaves  of  either.  Surely 
it  is  by  the  constant  flouting  of  such  authorities  that 
new  variations  of  life  are  attained.  Neither  gods  nor 
millenniums  are  the  outcome  of  passivity.  There- 
fore, gentle  women,  put  by  your  subterfuges  about 
age,  for  you  have  been  found  out ;  we  know  you  to 
be  older  than  we  men  are,  and  our  immemorial  desire 
is  that  you  should  be  younger. 

42 


PETERPANTHEISM 

Few  serious  attempts  to  restore  the  golden  age 
have  been  made  in  modern  times,  but  one  of  the 
greatest  of  these  is  that  of  Mr  Barrie.  Peter  Pan 
is  more  than  a  Christmas  pantomime ;  it  is  a  con- 
tribution to  religious  drama.  It  is  a  mystery  play, 
giving  significance  to  the  childlike  spirit  of  the  uni- 
verse. Peter  Pan  is  a  symbol  of  eternity,  of  that 
complete,  unchangeable  spirit  of  the  world  which  is 
superior  to  the  illusion  of  growing  up  :  that  dim 
vision  which  has  set  bounds  to  the  imagination  of 
humanity  ever  since  the  elderly  person  usurped  the 
throne  of  the  child.  Peter  Pan  reminds  us  again 
that  the  world  has  no  final  use  for  grown-up  things, 
that  cities  and  civilisations  pass  away,  that  monu- 
ments and  institutions  crumble  into  dust,  that  weeds 
are  conquering  the  Coliseum,  and  that  the  life  of  the 
immemorial  Sphinx  is  but  a  matter  of  time.  Peter 
Pan  is  the  emblem  of  the  mystery  of  vitality,  the 
thing  that  is  always  growing,  but  never  grown. 

He  came  among  us  some  years  ago,  when  our 
faith  in  the  child  had  nearly  gone.  But  even  to-day 
we  shall  see  that  there  is  no  place  for  little  children 
in  the  average  home,  and  that  when  a  place  is  pro- 
vided for  them  it  is  provided  because  they  are  a 
nuisance  and  a  burden  to  the  grown-ups.  It  might 
as  well  be  admitted  that  children  irritate  us ;  and 
this  means  that  we  are  no  longer  capable  of  entering 
into  their  kingdom.  We  revenge  ourselves  by 
teaching  them  all  sorts  of  worthless  knowledge. 
But  we  teach  them  nothing  so  worthless  as  this  facile 

43 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

art  of  growing  up.  That  is  the  final  and  unforgivable 
act  of  our  hopelessly  bewildered  lives.  We  make 
our  peace  with  the  children  by  moulding  them  to 
our  own  image ;  perhaps,  one  of  these  days,  for  all 
things  are  possible,  we  shall  become  wise  enough  to 
permit  the  children  to  return  the  compliment. 

The  desire  to  make  them  as  we  are  is  the  fatal 
desire  of  a  lost  cause.  It  means  that  communications 
with  the  child-world  have  been  cut  off,  which  is 
only  another  way  of  saying  that  we  have  abandoned 
our  alliance  with  the  main  tendency  of  life.  We 
have  ceased  to  grow.  We  have,  in  fact,  grown  up, 
and  are  fit  only  for  life's  scrap-heap. 

We  talk  of  evolution ;  but  half  of  the  idea  of 
evolution  is  illusion,  and  the  other  half  the  assertion 
of  the  child-spirit.  It  is  the  child-spirit  building 
castles  in  the  air.  And  our  talk  of  that  little  sister 
of  evolution,  progress,  is  not  any  more  helpful ;  for 
progress  is  generally  nothing  more  than  a  vain 
endeavour  to  put  the  clock  forward.  The  only 
really  vital  thing  in  life  is  the  unconscious  abandon- 
ment of  young  things — the  spirit  of  play.  And  if 
we  think  for  a  moment  we  shall  see  that  it  is  play, 
or  the  contemplation  of  play,  that  gives  us  most  joy. 
We  never  tire  of  watching  the  play  of  children  or  of 
young  animals.  That  is  sane  and  healthy  :  there 
are  no  better  things  to  watch.  Our  approval  links 
us  with  the  living  world  again,  just  as  our  love  of 
children  does.  That  is  why  our  delight  in  young 
life  is  always  tinged  with  melancholy.     Whilst  we 

44 


PETERPANTHEISM 

approve  and  love  the  ways  of  the  young  we  uncon- 
sciously condemn  our  elderliness.  We  realise  that 
the  most  superb  adult  is  a  dismal  failure  beside  a 
child  making  mud  pies,  or  a  kitten  chasing  its  tail. 
But  we  rarely  admit  it ;  when  there  is  a  chance  of  our 
going  so  far  we  become  frightened,  and,  shaking  our- 
selves, we  murmur  something  about  sentimentality, 
and  speedily  commence  growing  old  again,  thereby 
displaying  our  impotence  and  our  ignorance. 

The  sign  that  we  have  accomplished  our  ignoble 
aim,  and  grown  up,  is  that  we  no  longer  have  the 
impulse  to  play.  We  go  about  our  business  in  colour- 
less garments  and  surroundings,  buying  and  selling 
and  ruling  with  revolting  solemnity.  The  last 
glimmering  of  the  spark  of  play  is  seen  in  our  shame- 
lessly hiring  people  to  play  for  us.  We  hire  foot- 
ballers and  cricketers  to  play  games  for  us,  jockeys 
to  ride  for  us,  singers  to  sing  for  us,  dancers  to  dance 
for  us,  and  even  pugilists  and  soldiers  to  fight  for  us. 

Those  who  have  become  as  little  children  will  want 
to  do  all  these  things  for  themselves.  They  will  no 
more  desire  to  play  by  proxy  than  they  will  desire 
to  live  by  proxy.  Art  has  been  described  as  the 
expression  of  man's  joy  in  his  work,  and  joyful  work 
is  the  kind  of  work  practised  by  those  who  have  the 
courage  to  be  young.  It  is  fundamentally  play,  and 
no  other  kind  of  work  really  matters.  We  have 
some  remote  idea  of  this  when  we  utter  the  common- 
place that  success  depends  largely  upon  one's  doing 
the  work  one  likes  to  do.     It  is  also  pretty  generally 

45 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

recognised  that  there  is  no  joy  in  what  is  merely 
laborious.  Beyond  all  men  the  artist  knows  this ; 
not  because  his  work  is  easy,  but  because  he  is  happy 
in  his  work.  It  is  a  wonderful  game.  "  I  pray  God 
every  day,"  said  Corot,  "  that  He  will  keep  me  a 
child  ;  that  is  to  say,  that  He  will  enable  me  to  see 
and  draw  with  the  eye  of  a  child."  And  France 
heard  him  sing  as  he  painted.  The  childhood  of  the 
world  was  in  that  song,  and  in  its  results. 

Children  are  unconscious  artists  in  living.  How 
to  reach  this  happy  state  is  another  matter  ;  precise 
rules  cannot  be  given,  because  there  are  none.  Per- 
haps there  is  no  direct  way  to  the  Golden  Age,  and 
even  if  there  were,  so  few  of  us  are  worthy.  However, 
there  is  at  least  one  useful  rule — that  is,  never  to  look 
upon  the  Golden  Age  as  past.  For  the  rest,  we 
might  follow  Peter  Pan,  and  refuse  to  grow  up. 


46 


MAKE-BELIEVE 

IT  is  the  prevailing  habit  nowadays  to  look  upon 
make-believe  with  contempt.  But  then  we  scorn 
so  many  charming  things  that  the  value  of  this 
attitude  should  be  very  carefully  discounted  by  those 
who  are  simple  enough  to  be  wise.  Much  better 
would  it  be  to  attempt  to  discover  how  far  one 
may  wisely  believe  and  at  what  point  make-believe. 
Such  an  inquiry  might  bring  us  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  there  is  more  than  a  little  virtue  in  the 
latter. 

For  myself  I  have  no  doubts.  I  believe  make- 
believe  to  be  the  prelude  to  belief.  It  is  the  quicken- 
ing of  faith,  an  earnest  of  the  growing  world.  It 
shines  like  a  prophecy  through  the  eyes  of  every 
child,  it  lights  up  the  path  of  everyone  who  has  not 
ceased  to  wonder.  But  it  is  not  mere  credulity, 
blind  acceptance  of  things.  That  is  ignorance. 
Make-believe  is  wise  and  coy,  it  looks  whimsically 
upon  its  surroundings,  and  laughs,  because  it  knows 
them  for  what  they  are  worth — nothing.  That  is  to 
say,  it  knows  that  things,  as  they  are,  are  worth 
nothing  until  they  have  been  transfigured  by  human 
desires ;  and,  furthermore,  that  our  desires  are 
deepened    by  the  colour  we    throw   upon    things. 

47 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

This  throwing  of  colour,  this  splashing  of  the  world 
with  design,  is  the  function  of  make-believe. 

You  may  have  observed  that  one  of  the  earliest 
amusements  of  the  child  is  to  make-believe  it  is  an 
adult.  Children  have  a  game,  and  it  is  a  game 
common  to  children  of  all  times  and  places,  in  which 
they  pretend,  with  much  solemnity,  to  be  fathers 
and  mothers  and  other  elderly  persons.  And,  sure 
enough,  showing  what  a  powerful  thing  make- 
believe  is,  these  youngsters  do  grow  up.  This  is  not 
one  of  the  happiest  uses  of  the  faculty,  but  its  familiar 
and  appalling  results  ought  to  appeal  to  all.  And  is 
not  the  sequel  to  this  tragedy  revealed  in  the  bitter 
cry  of  the  elderly  person  that  things  were  better  in  his 
youth  ?  An  admission  surely  that  the  elderly  person 
is  beaten  in  the  race. 

It  ought  to  make  us  realise  the  possibility  of  there 
being  a  realm,  intermingled  with  the  mundane  world, 
about  which  we  are  so  confident,  where  substances 
and  appearances  yield  more  readily  to  the  influence 
of  will ;  a  world  in  which  make-believing  takes  the 
place  of  all  our  ponderous  social  machinery ;  where 
forms  are  changeable  at  the  instance  of  a  wish,  and 
life  finds  eternity  in  itself,  and  not,  as  it  hopes  to  do 
to-day,  by  piling  stone  upon  stone  for  a  thankless 
and  impossible  posterity. 

Such  a  realm  does  actually  exist  in  our  very  midst, 
did  we  but  know.  Our  cities  are  not  the  permanent 
things  we  think  they  are,  they  are  at  best  little  more 
than  clusters  of  houses  made  of  cards,  such  as  we 

48 


MAKE-BELIEVE 

used  to  build  as  children,  only  we  do  not  give  our- 
selves the  pleasure  of  knocking  them  down  as  often 
as  we  might  do.  We  leave  them  to  fall  down,  or  to 
be  crumbled  away  in  the  hands  of  Time.  And  we 
don't  even  know  that  the  sad  joy  we  feel  as  we  con- 
template a  ruined  castle  or  abbey  is  more  than  half 
due  to  the  unconscious  recognition  of  the  stupendous 
fact  that  destiny,  also,  is  playing  at  card-castles. 
We  have  small  interest  in  a  building,  no  matter  how 
noble,  until  it  lies  in  ruins.  Then  we  are  so  much  in 
love  with  it  that  we  are  happy  if  permitted  to  spend 
a  holiday  beside  it.  The  actual  process  of  change 
gives  us,  as  it  should,  even  more  happiness.  We 
rush  with  almost  savage  joy  to  see  a  house  on  fire ; 
the  sight  of  the  scampering  fire-engine  fills  us  with 
envy  because  we  cannot  follow  it.  And  what  would 
we  not  have  given  to  have  seen  the  easy  and  tragic 
contempt  with  which  the  fates  toppled  the  beautiful 
cities  of  the  Straits  of  Messina  to  destruction,  or  to 
have  had  reserved  seats  at  the  same  Olympic  game 
when  San  Francisco  and  all  her  towers  and  sky- 
scrapers were  thrown  over  as  a  child  wrecks  the 
buildings  it  has  made  out  of  wooden  bricks. 

There  are,  however,  other  and  less  melodramatic 
expressions  of  this  mutable  world  of  which  I  write. 
They  come  to  us  in  the  stillness  of  night,  when  reason 
has  been  dethroned  by  slumber,  and  material  con- 
sistency dissolved  in  a  mystery,  a  mystery  out  of 
which  is  reared  up  a  life  infinitely  more  vivid  than 
the  thing  we  call  reality  when  we  are  awake.  In  our 
d  49 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

dreams  objects  yield  to  the  touch  of  fancy,  as  easily 
and  as  quickly  as  the  keys  of  the  piano  respond  to 
the  light  touch  of  a  lady's  finger-tips.  In  dreamland 
we  live  among  familiar  things,  whose  reality  has 
become  so  intense  that  it  is  almost  painful  to  our  dull 
senses.  Yet  we  know,  if  not  during  sleep,  at  least 
afterwards,  that,  intensely  real  as  the  dream-things 
are,  they  are  mere  airy  nothings  compared  with  the 
same  things  when  met  out  of  dreamland. 

Whatever  the  dream-specialist  may  say  about 
dreams,  and  just  now  he  is  saying  many  things,  the 
indisputable  fact  remains  that  dreamland  is  as  yet 
unexplained  and  unexplored.  We  do  not  know  why 
we  look  upon  dreams  as  airy  nothings  in  our  wakeful 
moments,  any  more  than  we  know  why  we  live  more 
intensely  in  our  dreams  than  we  do  whilst  we  are 
awake.  These  things  are  mysteries.  But  I  cannot 
understand  why  we  should  pass  off  so  lightly  a  con- 
dition of  life  which  is  so  much  greater  in  every  sense 
than  the  round  of  duties,  drudgeries,  and  hypocrisies 
which  make  up  our  waking  hours.  Such  circum- 
stances seem  tiny  and  ineffectual,  seem  indeed  what 
they  are,  compared  with  the  vivid  and  masterly 
accomplishments  of  our  dreams. 

Everything  which  means  anything  to  us  whilst 
awake,  means  ten  times  as  much  in  dreamland. 
There  is  not  only  a  concentration  of  time,  for  dreams 
seem  to  happen  rapidly  in  the  few  seconds  between 
waking  and  wakefulness,  but,  quite  naturally  there 
is  also  a  concentration  of  life.  The  life  we  would  spread 

5o 


MAKE-BELIEVE 

over  hours,  even  years,  is  forced,  in  our  dreams,  into 
the  point  of  a  second.  Our  remembrance  of  these 
experiences  is  the  recollection  of  immemorial  things, 
yet  they  have  happened  like  a  flash  of  light  or  the 
opening  and  shutting  of  a  fan.  We  feel  we  have 
lived  deeply  and  experienced  greatly.  Generally 
our  experiences  have  been  quite  familiar,  but  as 
different  from  those  of  our  waking  hours  as  the 
figures  of  Michael  Angelo  are  different  from  ordinary 
men  and  women.  Yet  in  spite  of  it  all,  in  spite  of 
its  intense  reality,  our  poor  minds  cannot  contain 
the  memory  of  it.  We  remember  almost  as  briefly 
as  we  dream,  and  our  minds  ache  with  the  effort  to 
retain  the  slightest  souvenir  of  dreamland,  even 
though  the  memory  be  some  gigantic  terror  or  pain, 
for  all  things  are  greater  there.  It  is  as  though  we 
had  been  living  in  a  land  of  looking-glass  ;  a  realm 
where  all  things  are  one  with  the  play  of  light  on 
water,  the  flickering  of  flames  ;  with  shadows,  with 
sounds,  with  thoughts.  .  .  . 

I  wonder  is  life  all  make-believe  ?  Or  are  we,  as 
we  lie  asleep,  provoked  into  an  imaginative  effort, 
by  mysterious  presences,  elves,  gnomes,  fays,  pixies, 
or  what  not,  who  delight  in  our  hungry  bewilderment  ? 
It  may  be.  Yet  I  think  it  more  probable  that 
dreamland  is  a  foretaste  of  the  sort  of  life  we  would 
live  if  we  could.  Dreamland  is  not  make-believe, 
but  reality.  Make-believe  is  an  endeavour  to  enter 
the  enchanted  realm  by  an  effort  of  the  will.  It  is 
self-conscious  dreaming ;    dreaming  by  will  instead 

5i 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

>y  sleep.  The  word  dreaming  bears  the  same 
relationship  to  the  deeper  realities  of  dreamland,  as 
living  does  to  the  mundane  world.  When  we  make- 
believe  we  build  with  the  material  of  dreams.  The 
desire  to  do  this  exists  somewhere  in  the  hearts  of 
us  all,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  devote  so  much  time 
to  denying  it.  This  denial,  however,  is  a  false  shame, 
the  sort  of  shame  we  feel  about  our  relationship  with 
all  really  vital  experiences.  In  the  polite  world  we 
only  admit  the  admitted,  and  therefore  polite  con- 
versation is  trivial.  Politics,  religion,  and  love,  the 
three  things  that  matter  and  into  which  make-believe 
enters  so  largely,  though  it  must  be  granted  not 
always  to  the  best  advantage,  are  forbidden. 

What  the  world  wants  at  the  present  moment  is 
not  more  morals  or  more  leaders,  or  more  reforms, 
it  wants,  more  than  anything  else,  more  of  that 
capacity  of  wonder,  more  of  that  faculty  of  faith, 
which  expresses  itself  in  the  large  and  abandoned 
principles  of  make-believe.  Dreamland  lies  at  our 
frontiers  but  we  have  deliberately  kept  its  products 
out  of  our  markets  by  the  establishment  of  a  tariff 
of  reason  and  rationalism  which  is  making  of  our  land 
a  humdrum  and  a  barren  waste.  We  are  overcome  by 
the  pompous  mock-permanency  of  the  life  we  see  about 
us,  and  we  have  handed  over  the  reins  of  government 
to  the  dull  persons  who  are  the  reflection  of  these 
ponderous  things.  These  folk  have  no  imagina- 
tion, and  so  they  fear  a  change.  Their  minds  are 
bankrupt,   they  cannot  dream  of    another  and  a 

52 


MAKE-BELIEVE 

better  world.  Therefore  they  have  ceased  to  believe 
and  to  build  anew.  Make-believe  is  repudiated  as 
child's  play;  but  the  defenders  of  make-believe 
would  be  the  last  to  deny  this  charge.  They  accept 
it  and  say  that  it  is  good.  The  make-believe  of  the 
child  is  creativeness.  It  is  the  same  power  which 
moves  the  poet  to  give  to  airy  nothing  a  local  habita- 
tion and  a  name ;  that  is  why,  in  spite  of  all  our 
power  as  adults,  we  look  back  wistfully  to  the  days 
of  our  childhood.  That  is  why  we  love  children — 
we  see  in  them  what  we  might  have  been. 

But  the  greatest  evil  is  not  that  our  governors  are 
dull  and  doubtful.  The  evil  lies  in  the  fact  that  our 
poets  and  artists,  the  high  priests  of  make-believe, 
are  content  to  sing,  play,  and  paint,  to  the  time 
called  by  the  dullards.  Artists  have  become  pur- 
veyors of  bric-a-brac  to  the  people  who  have  kept 
imagination  out  of  our  daily  lives.  But  one  of  these 
days  they  will  awaken  to  their  true  destiny.  Poets 
will  become  what  Shelley  imagined  they  were,  "  the 
unacknowledged  legislators  of  the  world."  In  that 
day  we  shall  have  conquered  a  new  realm.  The 
centuries  of  make-believe  will  be  succeeded  by 
centuries  of  belief  ;  we  shall  still  live  amidst  familiar 
things,  but  those  familiar  things  will  have  gathered 
about  them  the  intensity  and  the  mutability  of 
dreams.  Then  we  shall  enter  dreamland  by  other 
doors  than  the  door  of  sleep. 

It  is  not  impossible,  this  dream  of  a  world  grown 
so  young  as  to  have  faith  in  its  dreams.     Everyone 

53 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

who  has  done  any  worthy  thing  has  believed  in 
dreams,  and  the  creations  of  fancy  have  outlived  the 
so-called  creations  of  reason.  Even  in  our  present 
age  of  science,  our  great  scientists  have  rarely  made 
discoveries  by  means  of  reason.  They  have  seen  the 
wonders  first  through  the  imagination  and  not  the 
microscope.  Reason  has  been  imagination's  tool. 
In  an  age,  therefore,  that  has  imagined  and  created 
eyes  that  can  see  through  the  opaque,  that  can  flash 
messages  across  the  world  without  wires,  that  has 
captured  the  human  voice  on  a  sensitive  cylinder, 
and  that  has  tamed  and  utilised  the  most  powerful 
and  mysterious  of  natural  forces,  in  an  age  that  can 
almost  demonstrate  the  hereafter  and  create  organic 
life  out  of  dead  matter — there  is  still  hope. 

Make-believe  has  gone  so  far  and  realised  so  much, 
that  all  things  may  be  expected  of  it.  Already  it  is 
becoming  absurd  to  talk  of  the  impossible  in  the  old 
reasonable  sense.  Logic  tells  us  that  the  impossible 
is  impossible.  But  make-believe  is  always  giving 
the  lie  direct  to  this  pessimist  by  showing  that  the 
impossible  is  the  only  thing  worth  attempting. 
Things  are  of  course  impossible  to  the  reason,  but 
that  is  no  argument  against  the  things  :  it  is  an 
argument  against  reason.  Dreams  may  not  stand 
the  test  of  reason,  but  why  should  we  not  inaugurate 
the  renaissance  of  make-believe  by  insisting  upon 
reason  standing  the  test  of  dreams  ? 


54 


PLAYTHINGS 

PLAY  is  one  of  the  great  mysteries,  and  the 
toy  is  its  symbol.  It  is  a  symbol  before 
which  all  have  bowed  ;  it  is  older  than  the 
gods  and  younger  than  the  latest  human  invention  ; 
packed  with  the  spirit  of  life  it  has  survived  the  ages, 
and  full  of  the  same  spirit  it  awaits  with  invincible 
patience  the  ages  to  come  ;  it  has  survived  all  creeds 
and  will  survive  everything  but  life.  The  individual 
toy  may  pass  away,  for  fashions  change  ;  the  day 
before  yesterday  it  was  a  wooden  doll  of  Dutch 
extraction,  yesterday  it  was  a  calico  cat,  to-day  it  is 
a  gollywog  or  a  Teddy  bear,  to-morrow  it  will  be 
something  else  ;  but  these  changes  are  merely  the 
changing  of  clothes  :   the  essential  toy  is  eternal. 

We  worship  the  toy  every  time  we  gratify  the 
delight  of  a  child  ;  but  our  worship  is  deeper  in  those 
fleeting  moments  when  we  stand  in  a  place  of  toys 
and  look  wistfully  at  them  with  a  look  full  of  bashful 
wonder  which  reveals  a  desire  born  of  the  remote 
past,  nay,  of  the  eternal  present,  a  desire  to  buy  one 
for  ourselves  ! 

It  is  as  though  the  soul,  after  being  driven 
by  necessity  or  by  ambition  into  all  manner  of 
solemn,  tedious  byways  of  life,  suddenly  realised,  by 

55 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

a  magic  flash,  that  all  purposes  are  useless,  and  that 
only  one  thing  finally  matters.  That  one  thing  is 
play.  Some  men  laugh  at  this  feeling,  and  put  it 
hastily  by  with  a  sense  of  shame.  They  would  not 
like  to  be  caught  playing.  Such  men  are  infidels, 
for  play  is  of  the  gods. 

It  is  the  expression  of  the  creative  spirit,  the  child 
of  joy,  and  joy  is  finally  the  basis  of  all  religions. 
When  we  are  full  of  life,  when  each  sense  overflows 
with  vitality,  then  we  become  prodigal,  we  scatter 
ourselves  broadcast,  we  take  chances,  risk  great 
odds,  love,  laugh,  dance,  write  poems,  paint  pictures, 
romp  with  children ;  in  short,  we  play.  It  is  only 
the  impotent  who  do  not  play.  The  people  who  play 
are  the  creators. 

The  proper  name  of  toys  is  playthings.  They  are 
quite  irrational,  and  their  only  justification  is  that 
they  give  happiness — and  I  have  yet  to  learn  of  any- 
thing better  worth  giving.  But  in  giving  happiness 
they  give  life,  that  is  why  happiness  is  worth  having. 
When  you  play  you  are  happy,  while  you  are  happy 
you  are  in  eternity — for  happiness  annihilates  time 
and  space.  Children  are  the  greatest  players,  they 
follow  their  instincts,  which  tell  them  that  play  is 
recreation.  Even  adults  call  games  recreations,  but 
they  have  almost  forgotten  what  the  word  means. 
They  have  so  far  forgotten  the  meaning  of  it  that 
they  have  set  apart  a  certain  time  for  play  and  a 
certain  time  for  work.  All  work  should  be  recreation ; 
all  work  should  be  play. 

56 


PLAYTHINGS 

Children  are  always  playing  when  they  are  healthy 
— and  we  who  are  older  might  learn  wisdom  from 
them.  But  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  do  just  the 
opposite ;  we  even  go  to  considerable  trouble  and 
spend  endless  money  in  teaching  children  how  not  to 
play.  At  the  same  time  we  do  not  deny  that  unless 
we  become  as  little  children  we  can  in  no  wise  enter 
the  kingdom  of  heaven.  But  we  are  not  lost  to  all 
hope  :  we  have  not  sunk  to  the  lowest  depths,  be- 
cause we  still  look  upon  at  least  one  feast  in  the  year 
as  a  festival  of  play.  When  we  fill  our  youngsters' 
stockings  with  toys  on  the  eve  of  Yule  we  pour 
libations  on  the  altar  of  the  true  faith. 

No  one  ever  performs  an  act  without  becoming 
part  of  the  act.  We  are  all  but  the  reflections  of  the 
things  we  do.  So  when  we  join  in  the  great  ritual 
of  the  festival  of  toys  we  recreate  in  ourselves  some- 
thing of  the  spirit  of  the  joyous  children  who  are  the 
recipients  of  our  bounty.  We  feel  not  only  benefit 
from  the  giving,  but  from  the  gift.  When  we  walk 
through  the  stored  bazaars  at  Yuletide  and  hear  the 
babel  of  sounds,  children's  happy  voices  clamouring 
with  the  voices  of  toy  dolls  and  animals,  raucous 
gramophones  out-shouting  musical  boxes,  and  all 
the  merry  noises  of  Toyland,  we  are  communicants 
in  a  great  sacrament. 

The  happy  bewilderment  we  feel  at  such  times  is 
one  of  the  most  genuine  of  all  human  feelings.  It  is 
really  a  harking  back  to  the  child-spirit.  We  are 
turning  our  dull,  grown-up  wits  into  the  main  current 

57 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

of  life.  A  revolution  is  going  on  in  our  spirits — we 
must  not  arrest  it,  for  we  are  becoming  as  little 
children. 

It  is  indeed  remarkable,  and  even  hopeful,  that  we 
grown-ups  ever  do  choose  aright.  It  is  no  easy  matter 
to  enter  into  the  ideals  of  a  child  at  anv  time,  and 
when  we  stand  in  Toyland  surrounded  by  all  the 
bizarre  fetishes  of  childhood,  which  the  stern  laws 
of  our  workaday  lives  condemn  as  absurd,  it  is  a 
wonder  that  we  do  not  wish  to  sweep  the  whole 
bauble  shop,  into  eternity.  But  we  do  not  do  this. 
We,  for  a  brief  space,  become  absurd.  Happy  is  the 
man  who  can  thus  make  a  fool  of  himself.  The  world 
is  saved  by  such  acts. 

How  easy  it  is  to  vote  "  straight,"  or  to  do  a  deal 
in  cotton  or  corn,  or  even  to  buy  Consols  for  the  rise, 
which  does  not  always  occur  at  the  appointed 
moment !  But  when  it  comes  to  a  deal  in  toys,  you 
are  up  against  a  new  game.  It  is  no  easy  matter  to 
decide  whether  little  Miss  Five-year-old  will  prefer 
a  gollywog  or  a  Teddy  bear,  or  to  speculate  on  the 
measure  of  appreciation  some  lady  of  ten  years 
would  accord  to  the  pink  curves  of  a  dainty  rogue 
in  celluloid,  in  comparison  with  the  more  graceful 
charms  of  some  aristocratic  doll  from  Paris,  with 
immaculate  cork  stuffing,  kid  limbs,  real  hair,  and 
elegant  mutable  joints.  Before  such  deep  questions 
the  trials  of  commerce  pass  into  nothingness. 

Our  difficulties  are  due  to  inexperience,  and  these 
are  largely  modified  when  we  have  to  deal  with  boys. 

58 


PLAYTHINGS 

A  ball,  the  greatest  of  all  symbols  of  play,  even  a 
grown-up  can  appreciate,  and  we  can  even  see 
more  fun  in  a  toy  railway  system,  steamship,  or 
waggon  and  horses. 

The  truest  test,  however,  lies  in  our  capacity  for 
appreciating  the  irrational  playthings.  We  must  be 
uplifted  at  the  rotund  absurdity  of  Humpty-Dumpty. 
Gollywog  must  fill  us  with  wonder  and  delight. 
Teddy  bear  must  be  our  big  game.  A  horse  whose 
body  is  a  stick  upon  two  wheels  must  be  our  charger. 
Noah's  Ark  must  be  our  Zoo,  and  Caran  d'Ache, 
rather  than  the  Kennel  Club,  must  decide  the  points 
of  our  dog !  We  must,  in  conclusion,  not  only 
administer  to  the  child,  we  must  look  through  the 
eyes  of  a  child.  For  children  see  very  clearly,  and 
their  play  is  more  serious  than  our  work,  and  more 
important.  An  awakening  of  a  true  delight  in  toys 
will  be  the  signal  to  play — and  play  in  the  last  resort 
is  prayer.     Therefore,  let  us  play. 


59 


FESTIVAL   OF   GIFTS 

I  OFTEN  wonder  how  long  society  would  hold 
together  if  the  ideal  of  thrift  were  pushed  to  its 
logical  conclusion  ;  it  would  not  hold  together 
very  long,  I  feel  certain,  for  saving  is  farther  removed 
from  vitality  than  spending.  He  who  spends  well 
saves,  and  even  he  who  spends  ill  saves  more  than  he 
who  saves  all.  Most  people  believe  this,  and  old 
sayings  like  "  'Tis  better  to  give  than  to  receive  ': 
are  accepted  as  truisms.  In  the  mysterious  natural 
economy  of  social  life,  generosity  must  be  taken  as 
the  basis  of  our  traffic  with  one  another,  otherwise 
the  social  fabric,  or  what  is  worth  having  of  it,  would 
quickly  fall  to  pieces.  But  at  the  same  time  we  are 
all  too  eager  to  take  the  ancient  saying  that  'tis  better 
to  give  than  to  receive,  "  as  read."  Our  acceptance 
is  so  complete  that  the  act  of  giving  has  been  de- 
graded into  a  charitable  convention,  or  else  entirely 
suspended.  We  seem  to  recognise  this  failing  once 
in  a  twelvemonth,  when,  at  Yuletide,  the  year  dies 
in  a  burst  of  splendid  generosity.  Yuletide  has  be- 
come the  symbol  of  giving,  the  Feast  of  Gifts. 

It  is  the  season  of  penance  for  past  niggardliness. 
It  is  the  appointed  hour  for  the  payment  of  the  only 
genuine  debts,  the  unconscious  and  inevitable  in- 

60 


FESTIVAL   OF   GIFTS 

debtedness  of  one  human  being  to  another.  At 
Yuletide  men  realise  with  more  unanimity  than  at 
any  other  time  their  interdependence,  their  common 
humanity.  Their  generosity  droppeth  as  the  gentle 
dew  from  heaven  upon  the  just  and  the  unjust  alike. 
Distinctions  are  cast  aside,  worthiness  is  out  of  count, 
recompense  is  not  expected.  They  reward  each  other 
for  being  human,  for  having  like  desires  and  similar 
needs.     Humanity  becomes  a  nation. 

This  spirit  is  traditional.  It  has  its  origin  far 
back  in  the  pagan  days,  when  Yuletide  foreran 
Christmastide,  when  the  pastoral  folk  gave  thanks 
to  the  Sun  for  his  bounty,  linking  the  arm  of  fellow- 
ship one  with  another  as  a  sign  of  the  desired  union 
of  hearts.  And  these  early  feasts  were  but  the  ex- 
pression of  a  still  more  remote  recollection  of  the 
kinship  of  man  in  the  lonely  spaces  of  the  world. 

It  is  all  very  well  for  specially  constituted  philo- 
sophers to  deny  loneliness,  as  Thoreau  did,  because, 
forsooth,  our  planet  was  in  the  Milky  Way ! 
Such  pious  imaginings  will  never  suffice  for  the  great 
mass  of  humanity.  We  may  cast  our  love  up  to  the 
stars  to  our  own  infinite  advantage,  but  I  doubt 
very  much  whether  we  or  the  stars  are  affected  by 
the  performance.  There  is  only  one  star,  so  far  as 
we  have  any  information,  that  is  affected  by  our  love, 
and  that  is  the  star  which  no  man  has  ever  seen 
shining  in  the  night :  the  planet  Earth.  Wheeling 
through  space,  she  reciprocates  the  love  of  men 
because  it  is  the  point  at  which  her  love  of  self  be- 

61 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

comes  conscious.     It  is  this  primal  thing,  thisjearth- 
love,  which  informs  all   great  festival.     No  matter 
how  degraded  a  festival   become,  the  spirit  at  its 
heart  can  never  be  finally  eradicated ;    and  not  till 
the  joy  of  life  itself  be  dead  can  the  inner  mystery  of 
Yuletide,  though  snowed  under  no  matter  how  many 
vulgarities  and  insincerities,  be  a  thing  of  indifference. 
All  this  seems  very  reasonable.     But  the  Christmas 
spirit  is  not  reasonable  at  all.     Standing  apart  from 
it  you  can  explain  and  diagnose  ;   you  can  trace  its 
descent  from  "  the  dim  red  dawn  of  man,"  but  after 
all,  that  is  a  mere  act  of  erudition  or  mental  ingenuity, 
valuable  enough  as  a  tag  upon  which  to  hang  your 
conception  of    a  thing.     But  to   Santa   Claus  and 
his   laughing  host  of  gift-gathering   parents,    sons, 
daughters,  and  lovers,  romping   through  Shopland 
during  the  joyful  crescendo  of  Christmas  week,  such 
ideas    are    inconsiderable.     The    bewildered    looks 
on  the  shining  philanthropic  faces  of  the  Christmas 
shoppers  are  not  caused  by  futile  endeavours  to  track 
down  the  remote  origins  of  the  impulses  which  brought 
them  into  this  wild  jungle  of  gifts.     Paterfamilias  is 
pleasantly  worried  by  no  primal  theory,  but  by  a 
primal  need,  as  he  tries  to  decide  between  the  pleasure- 
giving  propensities  of  a  toy  railway  system  and  a 
rocking-horse  ;    and  the  young  mother  who  resists 
the  solicitations  of  a  two-foot-three  golliwog,  because 
it  will  not  go  into  baby's  stocking,  is  filled  with  a 
much  more  subtle  emotion  than  he  who  endeavours 
to  trace  the  evolution  of  the  Yuletide  spirit. 

62 

J 


FESTIVAL   OF   GIFTS 

Christmas  is  quite  irrational,  for  that  reason  it 
cannot  die.  For  just  one  week  a  new  currency  is 
in  operation.  Of  course,  people  do  pay  for  things, 
but  it  were  unkind  to  think  the  keepers  of  toys  and 
the  masters  of  the  great  bazaars  expected  payment. 
They  would  all  far  rather  give  just  in  the  same  spirit 
as  you  are  going  to  give.  That  a  small  charge  is 
made  is  a  symbol  of  our  low  estate.  They  at  least 
try  to  sell  you  things  in  the  spirit  of  presentation. 
This  is  brought  out  in  some  instances,  when  the  fine 
feeling  of  certain  toy  merchants  has  taken  the  form 
of  providing  means  for  what  really  amounts  to 
surreptitious  payment.  At  the  bottom  of  their 
hearts  they  know  that  to  receive  money  for  com- 
modities during  Christmas  week  is  a  vulgar  necessity 
— almost  an  irregular  commission.  So  some  of  them 
have  built  wonderful  grottos,  or  other  semblances  of 
Fairyland,  wherein  you  enter,  if  you  are  young 
enough,  with  some  kindly  adult  who  secretly  pays 
an  entrance  fee,  and  you  meet  Santa  Claus  himself 
scattering  largesse  of  wondrous  coloured  parcels 
containing  untold  treasures.  And  to  my  own  know- 
ledge there  are  halls  of  dazzling  brightness,  full  of 
the  desired  things  of  all  the  earth,  where  no  one  is 
asked  to  buy ;  where  you  may  walk  down  avenues 
full  of  strange  beasts  and  weird  persons,  elephants 
and  tigers,  Teddy  bears,  jabberwocks,  Humpty- 
Dumpties,  and  golliwogs ;  dolls  of  all  nations,  and  all 
the  wonders  of  science  from  locomotives  to  aero- 
planes ;   and  where  the  air  is  full  of  merry  sounds  : 

63 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

the  persevering  harmony  of  the  gramophone,  and 
that  music  of  the  spheres,  the  happy  laughter  of 
children. 

I  know  quite  well  that  again,  if  you  are  young 
enough — for  you  remember  that  it  is  necessary  to 
become  as  a  little  child  before  you  can  enter  the 
kingdom  of  heaven — if  you  are  quite  young  enough 
then,  and  like  any  particular  thing  well  enough,  that 
thing  is  quite  certain  to  be  either  in  your  stocking 
or  on  your  bed  on  Christmas  morning.  There  are 
many  authentic  instances  ;  one  quite  fresh  in  my 
own  experience  is  that  in  which  an  elephant  was 
miraculously  translated  from  the  town  to  the  suburbs 
in  this  way  without  any  obvious  payment ! 

And  are  not  the  bankers  also  in  the  happy  con- 
spiracy ?  Do  they  not,  during  this  irrational  week, 
give  you  bright  new  money,  obviously  made  to  be 
given  away  ?  Fresh  threepenny  pieces  to  add  to 
the  flavour  of  the  Christmas  pudding ;  star-like 
sixpences  and  shillings  for  errand  boys  who  come 
mysteriously  into  your  life  at  this  season ;  moon- 
like florins  and  crowns  for  postmen  and  policemen 
who,  like  new  planets,  swim  into  your  ken  on  Christ- 
mas morning ;  fresh,  bright  sovereigns,  so  gorgeous 
that  they  look  worth  at  least  twenty-five  shillings, 
for  rich  uncles  with  deserving  nephews  ;  and  last 
of  all,  those  new  pennies,  bright  and  beautiful  as 
four-pound  pieces,  made  expressly  for  distribution 
among  street  urchins  and  beggars,  vendors  of  "  wax- 
lights  "  and   newspapers.     It  were  profanation  to 

64 


FESTIVAL   OF   GIFTS 

use   such   splendid   coinage  for  any  purpose  save 
these. 

And  later  comes  the  good  cheer,  the  best  gift  of 
all,  the  sanctification  of  all  presents.  Without  this 
all  the  rest  were  as  naught,  and  the  Festival  of  Gifts 
nothing  but  a  weariness  of  the  flesh.  In  the  festival 
of  Yule  we  raise  the  gift  to  a  higher  level.  We  give 
ourselves.  This  is  the  consummation  of  the  gift  of 
life  itself,  and  "  the  moral  of  it  is,"  as  the  Duchess 
used  to  say  to  Alice,  that  sooner  or  later  we  shall 
learn  that  there  is  no  reason  why  this  special  form  of 
present  should  be  confined  to  one  season,  to  almost 
one  day.  The  currency  of  good  fellowship  and  good 
cheer  now  peculiar  to  Christmas  Day  may  yet  be 
consecrated  upon  many  other  days,  upon  the  other 
three  hundred  and  sixty-four,  for  instance.  Why 
not? 


65 


APOSTLE  TO  THE   PAGANS 


<< 


A' 


BIT  of  fire's  very  nice,"  said  Frank,  hugging 
himself  before  the  flaming  hearth  like  a 
luxurious  cat. 

Outside  it  was  leaden  and  raw,  and  a  slab  of  damp 
mist  hung  over  the  fields  like  wet  wool.  The  same 
insistent  but  elusive  element  clung  to  the  bare 
hedgerows  and  the  tree-tops,  and  in  the  half  lights 
of  the  December  afternoon  the  country-side  had  the 
dreary  effect  of  the  scene  of  a  fire  the  morning  after, 
when  the  water-sodden  ruins  are  still  steaming. 

"  My  one  objection  to  summer  is  that  fires  are 
then  impossible,"  said  Merrion,  by  way  of  assent. 
Merrion  was  an  alleged  paradoxist,  and  everyone 
smiled. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Hargreaves  to  nobody  in 
particular,  as  he  sat  in  the  corner  pressing  his  half- 
baked  trousers  against  his  legs,  "  do  you  know,  if  I 
wanted  an  object  of  worship,  I  should  worship  fire." 

"  Here,  I  say  !  "  said  Frank  admonishingly,  for 
Frank,  like  most  luxurious  persons,  was  rather  ortho- 
dox. 

"  Why  not  ?  "  asked  Merrion.  "  Fire  is  every- 
thing and  everything  is  fire.  Without  the  eternal 
conflaorations  in  the  centre  of  the  earth,  and  that 

66 


APOSTLE   TO   THE    PAGANS 

eternal  circle  of  flame  caused  by  the  fire-ball  we  call 
the  sun,  outside  the  earth — there  would  be  no  life 
at  all.  Fire  is  the  only  creator  we  know,  and  the 
only  destroyer.  Without  light  and  warmth  there 
is  no  growth — and  light  and  warmth  are  the  outward 
signs  of  the  Almighty  Fire.  I  worship  power,  and 
the  greatest  power  is  fire — it  drives  the  motor  of  the 
world.  It  can  as  easily  burn  the  orchid  and  the 
alligator  into  existence  as  it  can  reduce  man  and  all 
his  puny  works  to  ashes.     If  it  were  not  for  fire " 

"  Steady  on,  old  chap  !  "  This  interjection  seemed 
to  come  from  all. 

"  I  was  only  going  to  say  that  if  it  were  not  for 
fire  we  should  have  had  no  Christmas " 

"  Let's  leave  religion  out  of  it,"  said  Frank. 
Merrion's  invincible  logic  made  his  ideals  wince. 

"  Will  you  let  me  tell  you  a  story  ?  "  asked  the 
fire-worshipper. 

"  Fire  away  !  "  said  a  voice. 

"  Once  upon  a  time  and  a  very  long  time  ago, 
but  not  so  very  long  after  orthodox  Rome  had  been 
moved  to  righteous  indignation  by  the  blasphemies 
of  a  sect  of  revivalists  called  Christians,  who  preached 
what  was  then  (as  it  is  now)  a  kind  of  new  theology, 
a  devotee  named  Glycon,  moved  by  the  fervour  of 
his  new-found  faith,  set  forth  to  convert  the  pagans 
of  the  North. 

"  Bearded  was  Glycon,  and  dour,  as  befitted  the 
apostle  of  a  gospel  of  joy  ;  bare  of  foot  also  was  he, 
and  clad  soberly  in  a  loose  robe  of  grey  cloth.     He 

67 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

carried  naught  with  him  save  a  long  staff  of  birch, 
and  with  this  he  would  mark  the  sign  of  the  cross  on 
the  earth  from  time  to  time  and  always  before  address- 
ing another  person.  So  Gly con  journeyed  from  the 
land  of  the  olive  and  the  pomegranate  to  carry  the 
glad  tidings  to  the  heathen  North. 

"  '  Alleluia,'  he  cried  as  he  passed  through  Alpine 
vales  ;  '  Alleluia,'  as  he  wended  his  way  through  great 
forests  and  verdant  coppices ;  '  Alleluia,  Alleluia,' 
in  the  wilderness,  where  the  wolves  shrank  from  him, 
and  in  the  settlements,  where  the  men  laughed  at 
him  and  the  women  sighed  for  lack  of  argument. 
'  Alleluia,'  he  cried  in  a  loud  voice  as  he  entered  the 
domain  of  men.  '  Repent  ye  and  rejoice,  for  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand,  wherein  no  man  nor 
woman  nor  child  is  heavy  of  heart  or  sad.    Alleluia ! ' 

"  The  simple  pastoral  folk  were  so  ignorant  that 
they  did  not  know  they  were  happy,  and,  despite 
their  burdened  lives,  knew  not  that  the  kingdom  of 
heaven  was  not  here  and  now,  and  they  clustered 
curiously  about  the  strange  teacher.  '  Alleluia,'  he 
cried  to  the  ignorant  peasants.  '  Have  ye  not  heard 
that  the  old  gods  are  no  more,  and  that  a  new  life  is 
opened  unto  ye  all,  a  life  of  gladness  and  great  joy, 
because  sinless  ?  Alleluia,  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
is  at  hand  ! '  -    j 

"  Glycon  was  a  gentle  creature,  or  the  people 
would  have  driven  him  forth.  So  they  laughed 
instead,  and  went  about  their  ways  husbanding  the 
earth  and  hunting  and  propitiating  their  gods  as  of 

68 


APOSTLE   TO   THE    PAGANS 

old  time.  But  here  and  there  the  good  Glycon  won 
followers,  and  under  his  guidance  they  peered  into 
the  mystery  of  life  and  saw  more  mystery  ;  and  they 
were  filled  with  an  unfamiliar  kind  of  unrest  which 
Glycon  called  '  peace  ' ;  and  they  acquired  the  power 
of  contemplating  their  lives  and  of  labelling  this 
action  as  good  and  that  as  bad ;  and  they  talked 
much  of  their  happiness.  .  .  .  But  only  those  who 
were  sad  of  heart  joined  the  good  apostle. 

"  Glycon  nevertheless  pushed  on,  carrying  the 
glad  tidings  into  still  wilder  regions,  where  thinking 
and  acting  had  not  been  separated  from  one  another 
at  all.  Here  the  pagan  folk  tilled  the  field,  hunted 
the  boar  and  the  bear  and  the  savage  wolves,  tended 
the  cattle,  as  simply  and  as  satisfactorily  as  they 
engaged  in  the  deeper  recreations  of  love  and  worship. 
They  would  have  none  of  Glycon's  teaching,  but  they 
did  not  molest  him.  On  the  contrary,  they  even 
allowed  him  to  abide  in  their  midst,  particularly  as 
his  wants  were  limited  to  a  cave  for  sleeping  purposes 
and  a  very  little  food. 

"  But  one  morning  after  the  fall  of  the  year  he  saw 
that  a  great  change  had  come  over  the  people.  He  had 
gone  out  into  a  clear  space  that  he  knew  of  in  a  wood, 
where  he  had  erected  a  rude  cross,  and  there  he  had 
intended  remaining  all  day  in  prayer,  in  celebration 
of  the  birthday  of  his  Saviour — for  the  day  was 
Christmas  Day. 

"  But  as  he  went  forth  to  his  lonely  temple  he  met 
bands  of  merry  folk  chanting  joyful  songs  and  carry- 

69 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

ing  garlands  of  holly  and  great  branches  of  mistletoe. 
The  maidens  wore  laurel  in  their  hair  and  the  young 
men  carried  branches  of  pine.  Everyone  seemed  astir, 
and  radiant  happiness  shone  on  the  faces  of  all.  The 
hills  echoed  back  their  songs,  and  their  merry  shout- 
ings were  thrown  about  the  woods  by  invisible  hands. 
All  seemed  to  be  wending  their  way  to  the  centre  of 
the  village,  and  Glycon,  rilled  with  human  curiosity, 
followed,  and  as  he  went  along  he  sang  aloud  of  the 
Nativity.  '  Alleluia,  I  bring  ye  good  tidings  of  great 
joy,  for  unto  you  is  born  this  day  in  the  city  of  David 
a  Saviour  which  is  Christ  the  Lord.' 

"  The  people  were  in  a  good  humour,  and  nodded 
their  encouragement  to  the  good  prophet.  Soon  they 
came  to  the  meeting-place  where  an  altar  had  been 
raised  and  a  great  fire  blazed.  The  priests  of  the 
people  were  there,  and  standing  high  above  the  throng 
they  gave  thanks  to  their  gods  for  the  bounty  of  the 
earth,  and  in  that  hour  of  the  darkest  winter  day  they 
rejoiced  the  more  for  out  of  its  full  darkness  was  the 
Sun  born  and  the  earth  again  replenished. 

"  When  the  priests  had  done,  a  great  shout  went 
up,  and  fires  were  kindled  all  over  the  village,  and 
around  each  romped  a  mad  rout  of  pagans,  laughing 
and  singing  in  joyful  fellowship.  Gifts  were  ex- 
changed, and  there  was  drinking  and  junketing. 
And  foremost  among  the  revellers  was  Glycon. 
The  pagans  rejoiced  because  the  good  prophet  had 
thrown  off  his  sombre  habit,  and  hailed  him  one  of 
themselves,  a  brand  from  the  burning,  a  convert  to 

70 


APOSTLE   TO   THE    PAGANS 

the  only  true  faith.  Shortly  after  the  great  festival 
of  good-will,  Glycon  returned  to  the  land  of  the  olive 
and  the  pomegranate,  filling  his  co-religionists  with 
joy  by  his  accounts  of  the  miraculous  conversion  of 
the  pagans  of  the  North  to  the  true  faith  on  Christ- 
mas Dav." 

Merrion  stopped.     "  Go  on,"  said  a  voice. 

"  That's  all,"  said  he. 

"  I  call  it  highly  blasphemous,"  said  Frank. 

"  What  I  want  to  know,"  said  Hargreaves,  "  is, 
where  does  the  fire-worshipping  come  in  ?  " 

"  It  doesn't  come  in,"  said  Merrion ;  "  it's  there 
all  the  time." 


7i 


BETWEEN    WAKING   &  AWAKE 

IT  came  about  in  this  way.  The  red  face  of  a 
winter  dawn  peered  through  the  window  as  I 
responded  (vocally)  to  the  signal  of  the  domestic 
tyrant  whose  duty  it  is  to  break  into  one's  dreams 
with  a  reveille  rapped  out  briskly  on  the  bedroom 
door.  My  response  evidently  carried  small  con- 
viction with  it,  for  she  knocked  again. 

"  Right-o ! "  I  cried,  snuggling  into  the  bed- 
clothes and  cosily  yielding  to  the  seductive  influence 
of  the  last  (positively  the  last)  forty  winks — all  the 
joys  of  rest,  as  everyone  knows,  are  distilled  into 
those  last  forty  winks — those  luxurious  forbidden 
fruits  of  sleep  before  the  matutinal  dip,  breakfast 
and  work. 

There  was  another  rap  at  the  door — a  little  lighter 
this  time — a  muffled  staccato  sound — but  deter- 
mined. 

"  All  right ! "  I  shouted,  with  some  show  of 
feeling,  throwing  the  blame  on  the  diligent 
awakener. 

The  rap  was  again  repeated.  Now  I  have  the 
courage  of  my  desires,  and  my  desire  then  was  to 
complete  those  forty  winks — had  I  not  snuggled  in 
for  them  ?    Were  they  not,  therefore,  mine  by  right  ? 

72 


BETWEEN   WAKING   k   AWAKE 

Wei],  I  was  just  on  the  point  of  proving  this  by  a 
masculine  demonstration  of  forceful  language — when 
the  door  gently,  almost  shyly,  opened,  revealing  the 
slight  form  of  my  lady  Marjorie. 

There  she  stood,  as  I  looked  at  her  none  too 
pleasantly  from  over  the  curve  of  the  down  quilt. 
She  was  just  discernible  in  the  gathering  dawn,  her 
little  red  slippers  peeping  under  the  hem  of  her  night 
robe,  her  eyes  sparkling  elfishly,  and  all  her  locks 
a-tangle.  She  came  towards  me  with  whimsical 
seriousness,  and  as  she  did  so  my  irritation  died 
down,  for  I  thought  I  could  see  a  faint  nimbus 
round  her  head — but  this  may  have  been  illusion. 
I  waited  patiently  though  curiously.  Then  that 
small  full  voice,  the  voice  I  could  easily  distinguish 
from  all  the  voices  of  earth,  spoke. 

"  Come  from  the  Land  of  Nod,"  it  said ;  then 
paused.  "  I  am  a  fairy,"  it  said  again,  and  there 
was  a  caressing  note  like  the  coo  of  a  dove.  '  I  am  a 
fairy  and  I  come  to  take  you  to  fairyland." 

Perhaps  I  had  better  explain  that  my  lady 
Marjorie  is  five  years  old. 

Her  words  and  manner  took  me  by  surprise,  and 

I  remember  Keats'  lines  from  "  La  Belle  Dame  satis 

Merci  "  passed  through  my  mind ;  you  know  how 

they  go : 

"  I  met  a  lady  in  the  meads 
Full  beautiful,  a  faery's  child." 

I  pulled  myself  together. 

"  But  how,"  I  began  with  some  confusion,  "  how 

73 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

can  we  get  there  ? "  Adding  rather  meanly,  I 
thought  afterwards,  "  and  I  hope  it's  not  far." 

"  Oh  no,"  said  my  lady  sweetly.  "  It's  not  very 
far — besides,  we  can  fly." 

"  Airships  ?  "  I  murmured. 

"  You're  a  fairy  prince,"  she  explained. 

"  Oh  !  thought  I  was  daddy." 

"  No,  a  fairy  prince."  Then  imperatively,  "  Come 
along !  " 

I  meekly  obeyed.  The  sex  has  ever  had  its  will  of 
me,  just  as  it  has  of  other  men,  only  I  admit  it  and 
don't  struggle.  A  girl  child  is  even  more  compelling. 
A  little  soft  hand,  frog-cold,  was  thrust  into  mine, 
and  the  voice  again  commanded  me,  this  time,  to 

I  bungled  at  first,  but  the  process  was  quite  simple. 
We  made  little  jumps  about  the  room,  much  as 
they  do  in  Peter  Pan,  waving  our  arms  as  though 
swimming  in  air.  Presently  we  glided  upwards,  and 
soon  reached  the  Jacobean  oak  chest  with  the  crude 
fleur-de-lis  on  its  sides,  which  stands  in  the  window 
bay  overlooking  the  garden. 

"  This  is  the  place,"  said  my  lady,  in  a  business- 
like way,  and  she  croodled  close  to  me. 

I  took  the  little  form  in  my  arms  and  sat  cross- 
legged  on  top  of  the  old  oak  chest  like  an  Oriental 
god,  my  lady  in  my  lap  like  a  symbol  of  some  new 
beautiful  faith. 

"  What  now  ?  "  I  asked,  trying  to  warm  her  cold 
hands  in  mine. 

74 


BETWEEN  WAKING   &   AWAKE 

She  looked  very  demure  and  very  happjr.  There 
were  some  love  passages.  Each  of  us  vowed  eternal 
fidelity  and  confessed  the  complete  sufficiency  of  the 
other's  company.  I  am  ashamed  to  admit  it,  but 
we  went  such  lengths  as  to  make  mothers  unneces- 
sary. 

"  We  seem  to  be  getting  along  famously,"  I  said. 

"  Don't  we  ?  "  echoed  my  lady. 

There  we  sat  above  the  tree-tops.  I  remember  a 
bullfinch  came  on  to  the  window-sill  and  looked  at 
us  in  a  friendly  way  before  he  descended  upon  the 
yew  crest  just  below.  We  talked  and  talked.  It 
was  not  merely  stories  but  the  record  of  our  ex- 
periences, which  were  most  strange  and  wonderful. 
I  grew  more  and  more  absorbed  in  the  adventure, 
and  my  lady  was  in  an  ecstasy  of  happiness. 

The  red  dawn  turned  to  gold.  Simrays  shot 
through  the  window,  making  light  blue  squares  on 
the  deeper  peacock  of  the  carpet.  I  had  seen  sun- 
beams many  a  time,  but  never  such  sunbeams  as 
these.  Or  perhaps  I  had  never  looked  at  them  from 
the  same  angle.  Anvhow  the  wonder  of  sunbeams 
was  enhanced  a  hundredfold,  and  sunbeams  are 
always  wonderful. 

These  teemed  with  life,  and  with  such  life,  it  was 
life  in  essence,  the  rare  and  ultimate  reality.  They 
were  populous  with  delightful  beings.  Brownies, 
elves,  fays,  hobgoblins,  tiny  satyrs,  fauns,  and 
centaurs,  and  all  manner  of  charming  people, 
dancing  and  gambolling  and  sliding  down  the  bright 

75 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

shafts  of  light  like  hoydens  down  a  banister  rail. 
They  were  dashed  on  to  the  light  patches  on  the 
floor  in  sprawling  and  hilarious  heaps,  only  to  jump 
up  again  and  glide  up  another  sunbeam  with  as  much 
ease  as  they  had  slid  down  ! 

Some  danced  in  a  ring,  as  they  coursed  down, 
binding  each  other  together  loosely  with  garlands  of 
red  and  yellow  roses  ;  others  pelted  each  other  with 
confetti  of  tiny  flowers  and  glittering  stars,  whilst 
still  more  scattered  fragrant  red  clover  into  the  riot 
of  the  slide.  A  queer  little  hairy  fellow,  with  goat- 
legs  and  mischievous  green  eyes  peeping  through 
a  ravel  of  brown  hair,  romped  about  on  a  blue  hobby- 
horse, bumping  into  everyone  and  being  received 
with  laughs  and  banter.  Six  dainty  creatures,  with 
the  quaint  heads  and  big  absolute  eyes  of  the  opossum 
and  the  black  and  gold  fur  and  translucent  wings  of 
the  humble-bee,  flashed  down  the  bright  gradient  of 
the  sunbeam  on  a  toboggan. 

There  were  aeroplanes  crowded  with  reckless  elves 
filling  the  light  with  coloured  fire  and  mad  laughter  ; 
and  swift,  strangely  coloured  motor  cars,  sea-green, 
opal,  chrysoprase,  blue,  with  goggled  brownies  at 
the  wheel,  rushing  up  and  down  continually,  with  no 
other  object  save  the  love  of  speed,  and  instead  of 
passing  each  other  side  by  side,  they  passed  over 
one  another  like  fishes  at  play,  and  instead  of  sound- 
ing toots  through  a  pneumatic  horn,  there  was  a 
perpetual  tootling  from  a  silver  clarion,  which  was 
blown  by  a  smaller  brownie,  who  rode  astraddle  the 

76 


BETWEEN   WAKING   &   AWAKE 

radiator  in  front  of  the  car.  Anon  there  was  a  great 
buzzing,  and  a  flight  of  blue  dragon-flies  passed,  each 
one  ridden  bareback  by  a  vividly-spangled  harlequin 
holding  on  perilously  to  a  golden  rein.  And  satyrs 
rode  on  the  backs  of  prancing  centaurs. 

Then  came  an  endless  concourse  of  fairies  tripping 
down  in  military  order.  Their  officers  rode  upon 
green  lizards  with  flame-coloured  wings,  but  the  rank 
and  file  were  afoot,  divided  into  battalions  of  about 
a  hundred,  each  of  which  carried  a  great  coil  of  daisy 
chain.  They  came  swiftly  towards  where  we  sat, 
and,  before  we  knew  what  had  happened,  they  had 
advanced  upon  us,  entangled  us  in  the  daisy  chains, 
and  hauled  us  on  to  a  sunbeam. 

Immediately,  without  any  fear,  we  entered  into 
the  fun.  I  placed  my  lady  upon  my  shoulders,  and 
led  all  fairyland  in  a  grand  slide  down  the  shaft  of 
light.  Away  we  went,  an  avalanche  of  shrieking 
merriment !  Oh,  the  invigorating  rush  of  air  !  The 
wild  delight — when,  bump  !  We  crashed  on  the 
floor ! 

I  commenced  to  rub  myself  and  to  look  for  my 
lady  at  one  and  the  same  time,  but  the  sun  got  into 
my  eyes,  and  something  was  poking  me  in  the  ribs — 
I  turned  round,  and  there  beside  my  bed  stood  my 
lady  Marjorie,  fully  dressed,  and  childish  consterna- 
tion on  her  face. 

"  Come,  Daddy  Lazybones,"  she  said,  with  reckless 
familiarity,  "  breakfast  is  ready,  and  mother  says , 
you'll  never  catch  the  nine-fifteen." 

77 


READINGS   IN   EARTH 


"  The  exceeding  beauty  of  the  Earth,  in  her  splendour  of  life, 
yields  aneiv  thought  with  every  petal." — Richard  Jefferies, 
The  Life  of  the  Fields." 


WINTER    GLAMOUR 

"  There  is  winter  in  the  air  : 
Frost  and  sunshine  everywhere, 
Rime  with  branches  intertwined, 
A  nd  the  frolic  of  the  wind 
Forcing  into  merrie  trot, 
All  the  warm  blood  man  hath  got  ; 
And  the  sunshine  everywhere, 
Rarely  warm  and  debonair — 
Therefore  youths  and  maids  be  gay 
On  a  winter  holiday.1'- 

Old  Song. 

OUR  love  of  summer  in  England  is  rarely  tried 
by  overmuch  familiarity  ;  were  it  so  I  doubt 
not  that  our  poets  would  tune  their  lan- 
guorous notes  to  cooler  themes.  For  summer  is  a 
flamboyant  goddess  loved  best  at  a  distance ;  I  love 
her  best  when  she  is  no  nearer  than  Morocco ;  at  that 
distance  she  has  charms  which  almost  move  me  to 
song ;  but  when  she  draws  nearer,  as  she  is  wont  to 
do,  sometimes,  with  her  pageantry  of  fiery  flower- 
decked  days,  my  love  becomes  indifferent. 

I  long  then  to  see  her  foliage  heaped  in  great 
brown  piles  and  sending  forth  the  sacrificial  incense 
of  autumn ;  I  long  to  see  the  hot  dust  her  golden 
chariots  have  raised  on  the  highways  laid  low  again 
with  the  rain  of  less  amorous  days,  and  to  hear  the 
f  81 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

same  highways  ring  once  more  with  the  tread  of 
hoofs  on  frost-bound  surface,  and,  better  still, 
to  see  once  more  the  trees  stand  bare  and  graceful, 
with  never  a  leaf  to  hide  their  sinuous  loveliness,  as 
the  soft  lights  spread  over  wood  and  glade,  and  over 
brown  arable  lands  and  grey  streets,  the  sun  no 
longer  a  proud  god  too  bright  for  human  eyes,  but 
a  friend  to  walk  with  in  equal  fellowship. 

Surely  the  excessive  worship  of  summer  to  the 
detriment  of  winter  is  a  sign  of  frailty.  It  is  fleshly 
fear  of  the  frank  strength  of  the  cold  :  a  physical 
recognition  of  unfitness  for  the  necessary  effort 
demanded  by  winter  in  her  traffic  with  man.  Or 
from  another  point  of  view,  it  is  akin  to  a  confession 
of  moral  weakness  in  the  face  of  that  which  is  naked 
and  unashamed.  Most  objections  to  winter  are  but 
the  querulousness  of  the  invalid,  for  winter  is  no 
less  beautiful  than  other  seasons,  no  less  bountiful 
to  those  who  are  not  subdued  by  the  abuse  of 
Nature,  and  no  less  uncomfortable. 

What  a  folly  it  is  to  suppose  that  winter  is  the 
dead  season — indeed,  the  poets  are  much  to  blame 
in  this  matter,  for  they  have  stimulated  the  false 
doctrine  in  no  small  degree.  For  winter  is  no  more 
dead  than  summer  is.  It  is  certainly  not  so  much 
alive  in  the  blossoming  sense,  but  it  is  quick  enough 
in  other  ways.  Changed,  to  be  sure,  is  the  face  of 
Nature — her  greenness  is  confined  to  the  fields  and 
the  lichen-covered  tree-trunks.  In  place  of  the 
assertive  verdure  of   June  there  is  the  prevailing 

82 


WINTER   GLAMOUR 

brown,  Nature's  predominant  note  in  northern 
latitudes,  the  colour  of  earth,  with  its  familiar 
earthy  fragrance  full  of  I  knoAV  not  what  suggestions 
of  man's  immemorial  kinship  with  the  mysterious 
mother. 

This  colour  of  earth,  so  elusive  in  summer,  when  its 
homely  scents  are  lost  in  the  fragrance  of  the  flowers, 
and  its  strangely  friendly  mould  labours  beneath  the 
foliage  of  a  myriad  growths,  comes  upon  us  in  winter- 
time with  the  surprise  of  revelation.  It  is  the  old, 
old  earth  again,  more  akin  to  man  than  perhaps  any 
organic  thing  save  man,  more  close  to  man  than 
any  other  thing.  For  the  spirit  of  the  earth  is  in 
him,  he  is  bone  of  her  bone,  flesh  of  her  flesh,  her 
child  to  whom  she  is  revealed  again  after  the  leaves 
are  fallen,  after  his  eyes  have  feasted  upon  the  in- 
numerable phases  of  her  progeny  in  the  periods  of 
foliage  and  blossom. 

This  perhaps  is  why  certain  natures  feel  a  new 
joy  at  the  sight  of  the  fresh-turned  corn  lands. 
To  see  the  sturdy  horses  plod  dreamily  over  the 
stubble  into  which  the  ploughman  drives  his  blade, 
leaving  behind  him  long  fragrant  furrows  of  fertile 
mould,  is  to  them  a  joy,  a  devout  exercise.  It  is 
not  merely  the  stalwart  labour  they  see,  but  the 
whole  rhythm  of  the  earth ;  the  association  of  man 
with  organic  life,  the  very  genesis  of  the  processes 
of  growth.  For  to  them  the  old  earth  is  never  dead, 
least  of  all  in  winter,  the  period  of  preparation  for 
her  continuance  in  the  flowers  and  songs  of  summer. 

83 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

It  is  but  a  sleep,  a  sleep  of  health  and  hope,  like  that 
of  a  growing  child  whose  growth  continues  the  while, 
or  that  of  a  healthy  man  weary  with  sane  labour — 
it  is,  in  fact,  the  beauty  sleep  of  life. 

And  the  woodland  beauty  of  June  is  redundant 
compared  with  the  fine  reticence  of  December. 
The  artificers  of  the  winter  forests  have  a  rare 
taste  in  illumination,  they  allow  nothing  to  come 
between  the  inmost  grace  of  branch  and  trunk, 
and  the  tempered  light  of  the  winter  sun.  They 
seem  to  have  exercised  a  process  of  reduction,  in 
much  the  same  manner  as  the  sculptor  who  chisels 
away  the  superfluities  of  the  block  of  marble  until 
the  goddess  within  stands  free  in  splendid  ultimate 
beauty.  So  have  the  winter  woods  been  treated. 
The  masses  of  foliage  have  been  stripped  from  the 
branches,  and  strewn  like  the  fragments  of  marble 
around  a  statue;  then  rises  out  of  its  soft  brown 
carpet  in  all  the  uncloaked  majesty  of  a  perfect 
thing,  the  leafless  tree,  intricate  yet  symmetrical, 
graceful  yet  strong,  a  symbol  of  infinite  beauty. 

This  is  but  one  joy  of  the  winter  woods  ;  it  is 
the  joy  in  beauty  of  form.  No  less  beautiful  is 
the  colour  of  the  woods  when  the  trees  are  bare. 
For  then  the  soft  browns  of  the  fallen  leaves  blend 
with  all  the  more  delicate  shades  of  green  peculiar 
to  shy  mosses  and  furtive  lichens,  and  the  grey 
distances  reveal  purple  boles  and  mysterious  blue 
branches,  illuminated  with  startling  clusters  of 
yellow  fungi.     Then  do  the  pines  wave  dark-plumed 

84 


WINTER   GLAMOUR 

heads  above  limbs  of  flame,  and  the  white  arms 
of  the  dancing  birch-trees  glisten  in  the  sun.  The 
laurels  cluster  in  hillocks  of  polished  green,  and  the 
scarlet  berry  of  the  holly  shines  like  a  beacon  over 
all  the  woodland  peace. 

Then  again  there  is  the  beauty  of  frost  when 
the  rime  traces  its  delicate  white  lines  over  every- 
thing ;  when  all  the  world  becomes  a  study  in 
black  and  white,  and  one  goes  forth  to  walk  or 
skate  with  a  new  sense  of  life ;  with  a  strange 
impulsive  vigour,  an  epicurean  sense  of  resistance 
towards  some  kindly  yet  indomitable  antagonist. 
It  is  like  going  into  a  contest  with  a  conscious  deter- 
mination to  taste  its  every  phase ;  with  the  sure  know- 
ledge also  that  Jack  Frost,  though  fully  intending  to 
play  the  game  and  lay  you  low  if  he  can,  is  never- 
theless all  the  better  pleased  when  you  conquer  him 
with  quick,  hot  blood  coursing  through  your  delighted 
veins  and  resisting  him  laughingly  at  every  point. 

But  these  are  outside  joys,  and  they  are  but  half 
of  the  fascinations  of  winter.  There  is  another  side, 
a  side  more  intimate  and  fully  as  beautiful,  a  side 
that  welcomes  the  shortening  of  the  days  and  the 
cooling  of  the  sunbeams,  because  it  is  happily 
haunted  with  a  piquant  vision  full  of  tender  memories 
and  comfortable  delights.  For  as  the  brown  earth 
of  winter  days  is  a  revelation  to  man  of  his  kinship 
with  all  things,  so  is  the  blazing  hearth  a  revelation 
of  his  kinship  with  all  men.  And  it  is  around  this 
altar  of  flame  that  those  inner  joys  of  winter  cluster, 

85 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

bringing  into  prominence  the  essential  fellowship  of 
man,  the  camaraderie  of  the  true  social  life. 

It  is  most  fitting  that  this  symbolism  should 
have  its  great  feast.  And  when  we  have  taken 
our  delight  in  the  beauty  of  winter  sunshine  aslant 
upon  echoing  woods  and  furrowed  earth,  we  take 
our  memories  of  it,  in  great  nests  of  mistletoe 
and  branches  of  holly,  into  our  homes,  which,  by 
this  act,  cease  to  be  castles  and  become  temples 
whose  altar  is  the  blazing  hearth. 

Far  back  in  the  dawn  of  that  conscious  state 
which  made  man  possible  was  born  a  new  power, 
a  new  knowledge,  almost  a  new  sense — the  sense 
of  fire.  The  animals  and  even  the  vegetables 
knew  the  use  of  water  and  air,  and  used  these 
elements  fearlessly.  But  it  was  reserved  for  man 
to  use  and  love  fire.  And  now  when  the  hearth 
burns  with  a  rich  glow  and  the  chairs  circle  romid 
the  warmth,  in  the  twilight  when  it  seems  a  fault 
to  light  up,  man  harks  back  to  his  dim  beginnings. 
His  contented  silence  as  he  watches  the  embers 
form  strange  fantasies  to  fit  his  dreams,  his  sense 
of  peace  and  comfort,  are  charged  with  a  thousand 
memories  born  out  of  the  unfathomable  past.  His 
peace  at  such  times  is  built  out  of  the  unrecognised 
memories  of  ancestral  bivouacs  beside  darkling 
caves,  of  his  jousts  and  junketings,  of  all  the  ages 
that  have  contributed  their  energies  to  the  building 
of  the  present. 

Summer  can  give  us  roses  and  long  fair  days  of 

86 


WINTER  GLAMOUR 

the  sun ;  autumn  gives  us  of  the  earth's  bounty, 
golden  cornfields,  stored  granaries,  and  sun-kissed 
fruits ;  spring  comes  with  wind-swept  robes  of 
dainty  emerald,  recalling  us  to  the  rebirth  of  material 
things ;  but  no  season  save  winter  can  bring  us 
the  long,  warm  fireside  evenings,  when  all  social  life 
seems  concentrated  in  a  triumphant  cosiness.  And 
as  though  man  had  recognised  this,  we  have  not 
his  words  or  his  songs,  but  we  have  his  most  memor- 
able festival  established  in  the  heart  of  this  abused 
season.  What  is  May  Day,  or  Midsummer  Day, 
or  Michaelmas  Day  compared  with  Christmas  Day  ? 
They  are  almost  as  immaterial  as  the  equator,  so 
much  so  that  we  are  hardly  aware  of  them  until 
the  day  after.  But  what  proper  man,  or  better, 
what  proper  child,  ever  forgot  it  was  Christmas 
Day  ?  The  idea  is  absurd.  Christmas  is  an  entity 
among  days  with  a  distinct  and  deliberate  flavour 
that  brooks  no  denying.  It  is  a  real  thing,  like 
Santa  Claus,  and  not  a  myth  like  the  May  Queen, 
who,  as  often  as  not,  is  merely  some  pretty  village 
damsel  playing  at  masquerade.  I  have  not  had  the 
good  fortune  to  see  Santa  Claus  myself,  but  I 
know  a  little  girl  who  has,  and  that  is  sufficient 
evidence  for  me.  Besides,  she  showed  me  the 
presents  he  brought  her,  all  cunningly  stuffed  into  a 
stocking,  and  just  the  things  she  wanted  :  an  orange, 
and  chocolates,  a  picture  book  and  a  wonderful 
Japanese  doll.  Of  course  they  "  couldn't  all  get 
into  the  stocking,"  I  was  informed,  and  I  tried  to 

87 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

think  what  other  season  possessed  so  kindly  an 
attendant  spirit ;  but  it  made  my  head  ache  trying 
to  discover  the  impossible,  and  I  was  glad  to  be  con- 
soled with  some  of  the  self-same  chocolates  brought 
by  Santa  Claus. 


88 


HEDGEROWS 

I  SOMETIMES  wonder  what  England  would  be 
without  her  hedgerows  ;  and  particularly  does  the 
thought  arise  when  those  illimitable  walls  of  life 
are  bursting  into  leaf  and  song.  The  thought  of  such 
an  England,  an  England  fenced  with  iron  instead  of 
whitethorn,  fills  me  with  dismay.  England  without 
hedgerows  would  be  like  England  without  Shake- 
speare. 

And  yet,  how  many  of  us  are  properly  conscious 
of  this  great  boon  ?  How  many  of  us  realise  what 
it  means  when  we  are  moved  again  and  again  by 
the  first  glimmer  of  green  on  the  hedgerows,  that 
green  which  blends  magically  with  the  deepening 
notes  of  blackbird  and  thrush,  as  if  all  were  one 
musical  strain  ?  At  such  moments  our  joy  is  some- 
thing more  than  a  response  to  the  call  of  beauty  at 
the  birth  of  new  life  :  it  is,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously, a  response  also  to  one  of  the  most  remark- 
able manifestations  of  our  national  genius. 

For  the  hedgerow  in  the  modern  world  is  English 
— as  English  as  Shakespeare,  and  as  great.  I  am 
proud  of  many  English  things,  but  of  none  more 
than  this.  In  our  hedgerows  I  see  all  that  is  great 
in  our  race  and  all  that  is  beautiful.     I  see  in  them 

89 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

nature  turned  to  the  will  of  man  with  such  inevit- 
ability that  both  man  and  nature  are  benefited ;  I 
see  the  creation  of  a  beautiful  thing  by  a  whole 
people,  and  not  by  any  special  individual ;  I  see, 
in  short,  beauty  springing  naturally,  as  it  always 
does,  out  of  skill  running  hand-in-hand  with  utility 
and  common-sense. 

The  idea  of  the  hedgerow  itself  is  not  English.  It 
is  one  of  those  many  ideas  which,  though  born  else- 
where, have  come  to  our  land  for  full  fruition.  For 
just  as  Shakespeare  was  a  part  of  the  Renaissance 
which  began  in  Italy,  so  are  the  hedgerows  the  con- 
summation of  an  idea  which  also  began  in  that  sunny 
land. 

They  guarded  the  vineyards  of  ancient  Rome,  as 
they  guard  to  this  day  those  of  modern  Italy.  When 
the  Romans  colonised  Britain  and  conferred  upon 
this  land  the  inestimable  boon  of  a  roadway  the 
hedgerow  was  part  of  the  gift.  Dangerous  and  in- 
definite parts  of  the  Roman  roads  were  guarded  and 
marked  by  walls  of  living  trees,  and  the  institution 
of  the  hedgerow  was  born  in  our  midst.  But  the 
idea  took  centuries  to  develop,  and  it  did  not  become 
general  until  the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  or  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth. 

Once  thoroughly  appreciated,  the  hedgerow 
rapidly  grew  in  use,  until  it  marked  the  boundaries 
of  nearly  all  our  tracts  of  land.  England  has  so 
surpassed  other  countries  in  its  adoption  of  this 
beautiful  method  of  fencing  in  fields  that  she  may 

90 


HEDGEROWS 

be  said  to  have  made  the  hedgerow  her  own.  All 
those  who  set  eyes  on  our  shores  for  the  first  time 
know  this.  Hedgerows  dominate  our  lowlands  and 
climb  up  our  hills  to  something  like  a  thousand  feet, 
gladdening  the  eye  more  permanently  than  any  other 
of  our  products. 

I  can  imagine  nothing  more  beautiful  than  these 
walls  of  living  green.  Similar  as  they  are  to  the 
casual  glance,  they  are,  in  reality,  as  infinite  in  variety 
as  they  are  illimitable  in  extent ;  and  where  there  is 
a  well-grown  hedgerow  there  is  life,  for  in  them- 
selves they  contain  a  whole  world  of  natural  things 
— all  the  more  interesting  for  being  interwoven  with 
the  life  and  habits  of  man. 

The  hedges  are  associated  not  only  with  orderly 
agriculture,  noble  parks,  or  trim  gardens.  They 
are  intimately  linked  up  with  other  phases  of  human 
life,  particularly  with  that  element  which  borders  the 
social  hem  as  they  border  the  fields.  Vagabonds 
and  others  who  stand  beyond  the  prim  fences  of 
society  are  known  as  hedge-folk,  just  as  the  wander- 
ing priests  of  the  common  people  in  the  Middle  Ages 
were  known  as  hedge-priests.  And  many  of  those 
things  in  human  life  which  are  a  little  wild  are 
associated  with  the  hedgerows,  not  least  of  which  is 
new  love,  for  we  know  that 

"  Every  lover  tells  his  tale 
Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale  v- 

in  the  bright,  untamed  days  before  domesticity  sets 
in. 

9i 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

As  for  Nature,  she  herself  has  returned  man's 
compliment  of  the  hedgerow,  by  making  the  hedge- 
rows her  home.  They  teem  with  vitality.  Mysteri- 
ous walls  of  life  in  a  double  sense,  housing,  as  they 
do,  a  far  greater  number  of  wild  things  than  any 
other  place  or  object  in  our  land.  It  is  in  the  hedges 
that  most  of  our  familiar  birds  nest,  from  the  cheer- 
ful and  friendly  hedge  sparrow  up  to  those  incorrigible 
melodists,  the  thrush  and  the  blackbird.  Most  of  the 
finches  make  their  homes  in  those  walls  of  green ; 
the  nightingale  sings  his  passionate  prelude  to- 
summer  in  their  branches ;  the  wrens  and  the  tom- 
tits fuss  up  and  down  their  quickset  lanes,  and  the 
robin  nests  cosily  in  the  ivy-clad  banks  from  which 
they  spring. 

It  is  in  the  hedgerows  also  that  our  smaller  animals 
love  to  find  a  home;  rats,  dormice,  weasles,  stoats, 
hedgehogs,  are  all  to  be  found  there.  And  amidst 
the  infinite  song  and  chatter  and  squeak  which  accom- 
panies the  affairs  of  all  these  little  creatures,  we  have 
a  constant  humming  of  innumerable  hedge-loving 
insects,  the  whispering  of  bordering  sedges,  and  the 
eternal  music  of  the  breeze  sighing  gently  through 
their  dense  foliage. 

But  the  wonder  of  the  hedgerows  is  not  in  the  life 
they  draw  to  them,  it  is  in  themselves.  The  life  they 
attract  is  but  an  evidence  of  their  own  inherent 
vitality  and  variety.  The  hedges  are  growing  walls, 
that  is  their  chief  call  for  wonder;  and  then 
comes  their  variety.     Almost  every  tree  that  grows 

92 


HEDGEROWS 

in  England  has  been  induced  to  lend  its  strength  and 
beauty  to  their  cause. 

The  queen  of  the  hedgerows,  as  we  all  know,  is 
the  whitethorn.  Greater  is  she  than  hazel,  or  holly, 
or  sloe-plum  ;  greater  still  because  she  allows  all 
these  and  every  other  tree  that  has  been  honoured  by 
service  in  her  ranks  to  grow  and  flourish  by  her  side. 
The  hedgerow  is  never  a  single  growth,  it  is  as  com- 
posite as  the  English  race.  The  flowers  and  creepers 
of  the  hedge  banks  are  as  much  a  part  of  it  as  the 
whitethorn ;  and  no  hedgerow  is  complete  unless 
it  is  decked  with  bramble  and  eglantine,  honeysuckle 
and  travellers'  joy. 

At  all  seasons  of  the  year  are  the  hedgerows  beau- 
tiful, but  at  none  are  they  so  beautiful  as  in  early 
spring  when  the  young  leaves  flash  from  the  brown 
tangle  of  branches  like  green  fire.  More  beautiful  are 
they  then  even  than  when  covered  with  the  fragrant 
snow  of  the  may,  the  delicate  pink  stars  of  the  June 
dew-rose,  or  the  scarlet  hips  and  haws  of  autumn. 
Then  do  they  seem  most  alive,  you  almost  feel  them 
growing;  and  their  green  fire  seems  to  be  a  part  of 
the  riot  of  song  which  swells  from  their  hearts. 


93 


SPRING 

1HAVE  watched  her  coming  shyly  over  the  tree- 
tops  these  many  days,  and  now  she  is  here.  You 
could  almost  feel  the  sap  tingling  in  the  branches 
as  she  drew  nigh,  and  when  she  was  within  hailing 
distance  the  happy  trees  greeted  her  by  hanging 
upon  their  branches  a  myriad  tiny  lanterns  of 
sparkling  green. 

Sometimes  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  her  in  a  gown  of 
shimmering  white ;  but  she  generally  wore  sober 
russet,  touched  cunningly  here  and  there  with  green. 
Sobriety,  however,  ended  with  her  gown,  for  her 
whole  being  was  intoxicated  with  young  life.  She 
came  romping  like  a  hoyden  among  the  shivering 
shrubs,  her  tempestuous  petticoats  shaking  the 
remnant  of  last  autumn's  leaves  and  catkins  out  of 
their  stark  hands. 

A  merry  child,  this  Spring,  full  of  pranks  and 
whims,  and,  like  all  children,  an  eternal  problem. 
She  will  and  she  won't,  like  a  maiden,  like  a  woman  ; 
but  generally  she  won't.  That  is  why  she  sets  the 
bards  a-singing.  When  she  will  she  is  beautiful  with 
the  beauty  of  young  things,  and  when  she  won't  she 
is  also  beautiful,  with  the  beauty,  the  more  seductive 
beauty,  of  promise  unfulfilled. 

94 


SPRING 

But  over  and  above  every  one  of  her  moods  she 
never  allows  you  to  forget  that  she  is  the  girlhood  of 
the  year,  and  she  reminds  you  as  well  that  all  girls 
worth  their  salt  are  coquettes  at  heart. 

How  she  flirts  and  teases  !  See  her  smile  and 
pout ;  see  her  coax — and  scratch  !  Now  she  leans 
forward  with  beckoning  lips,  you  advance,  and  she 
is  gone,  and  the  breeze  is  full  of  her  laughter.  Again 
she  meets  you  with  gay  crocuses  in  her  hands,  and  as 
you  go  to  take  her  gifts  she  hits  you  with  a  snowball, 
or  leaves  you  blinking  in  a  shower  of  rain  ;  and  in 
the  midst  of  your  surprise  you  catch  sight  of  her 
shaking  her  curls  at  you  from  a  sunny  patch  over  the 
hazel  hedge. 

Yet  you  cannot  resist  her ;  she  still  lures  you  on 
with  renewed  hope,  scattering  fair  promises  behind 
her.  Your  faith  in  her  is  immortal ;  you  feel  she 
will  not  always  be  so  capricious,  and  that  anon  she 
will  pelt  you  with  kingcups  and  cowslips,  with  daisies 
and  buttercups,  instead  of  with  hailstones  and  snow- 
balls. And  you  know  surely  that  the  tender  green, 
which  now  only  glints  among  the  russet  folds  of  her 
gown,  will  soon  robe  her  completely,  and  that  it 
will  be  decorated  with  dew-roses  and  flounced  with 
cloths  of  blue  and  gold  ;  and  on  her  head  will  shine 
a  coronet  of  hawthorn  blossom  and  laburnum. 

Meantime  she  is  maiden  Spring.  Her  gown  is  the 
colour  of  life,  the  colour  of  the  awakening  earth  ; 
its  peeping  green  the  symbol  of  creation.  Her  growth 
is  marked  by  this  spreading   greenness  of  things. 

95 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

Green  is  for  us  the  universal  colour.  It  follows  the 
ploughman  like  a  beneficent  fairy,  and  creeps 
wonderfully  over  the  tree-trunks,  giving  them  a 
richer  beauty ;  it  tingles  in  the  branches  until  they 
burst  into  leaf  as  birds  burst  into  song.  It  broods 
mysteriously  over  waste  places  in  strange  devices, 
and  lurks  elfishly  in  the  hearts  of  the  flowers ;  it 
lights  up  the  eyes  of  animals,  and  shimmers  over  the 
wings  of  the  raven  and  the  rook,  and  on  the  soft 
breast  of  the  dove. 

But  this  maiden  Spring,  who  makes  the  world 
green  again,  is  not  only  coy  and  whimsical ;  she  is 
brave  and  warlike,  a  Joan  of  Arc,  if  you  will,  battling 
against  tyrannical  winter,  in  the  name  of  the  only  true 
faith,  which  is  life.  For  does  she  not  come  with  a 
flourish  of  swords  and  the  glancing  of  many  spears  ? 
Indeed  she  is  the  veriest  of  Amazons  leading  a  host  of 
warriors  against  the  brown  battlements  of  winter. 

Mark  how  her  legions  advance.  First  come  the 
fair  ranks  of  the  snowdrop,  an  advance  guard  of 
light  infantry  pushing  strong  delicate  lances  through 
the  frost-bound  earth.  Then  follow  company  after 
company  of  hardy  troops,  crocus,  jonquil  and  daffodil, 
marching  in  gallant  array ;  then  the  solid  ranks  of 
the  veteran  grass  blades,  flanked  by  the  gleaming 
swords  of  the  iris  ;  whilst  overhead  glance  the  green 
arrows  of  the  beech  and  the  assagais  of  the  chestnut. 

Sun  and  rain  wait  upon  her  armies,  tempering  their 
spears  and  swords,  and  quenching  their  thirst ;  and 
all  the  birds  lift  up  their  voices  in  a  mighty  war-song, 

96 


SPRING 

half  rebellious  "  £a  ira,"  half  chant  of  praise  and 
jubilation. 

True,  the  birds  are  never  wholly  silent  in  our 
favoured  land,  but  they  never  sing  so  bravely  as 
they  do  during  this  great  annual  contest.  Even  the 
good  sparrows  and  the  robins,  who  never  desert  us 
in  our  darkest  hours,  chirp  more  bravely,  and  sing 
a  fuller  melody ;  and  throstle  and  blackbird  tune 
their  merry  notes  to  richer  themes  ;  whilst  the  sky- 
lark, "  singing  of  summer  with  full-throated  ease," 
urges  from  above  the  hosts  of  Spring  with  spurs  of 
silver  song.  All  the  little  warblers  and  finches  pipe 
their  jolly  marching  ditties,  or  blow  their  bugles  in 
the  hedgerows  ;  the  rooks  shout  their  advice  from 
their  watch-towers  in  the  elm-trees  ;  and  the  starling 
with  infinite  virtuosity  repeats  everything  he  hears 
in  exaggerated  terms  like  an  enterprising  war 
correspondent. 

And  as  the  legions  of  the  Amazon  add  victory  unto 
victory,  the  music  swells  in  mightiness,  augmented 
after  each  triumph  by  the  string  orchestras  of  the 
insect  world,  until  the  last  citadel  is  taken,  when  the 
movement  changes  and  the  great  war-song  dreams 
itself  away  in  a  hymn  of  praise.  The  renewal  of  life 
is  accomplished,  Spring  has  conquered. 

The  birds  that  went  on  furlough  in  the  autumn 
begin  to  come  back  to  the  army.  A  butterfly  flaps 
lazily  in  the  sun ;  a  swallow  skims  over  the  tarn ; 
the  cuckoo  rings  her  monotonous  wedding  bell ;  you 
linger  out  of  doors  as  the  sun  sets  in  a  golden  haze 
g  97 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

and  watch  the  angular  capers  of  the  flittermouse. 
A  new  note  of  passion  has  come  into  life.  The  trees 
are  fully  clothed  with  foliage,  you  can  no  longer  see 
their  graceful  limbs.  The  air  is  rich,  the  grass  is 
deep  and  ripe ;  the  year  is  no  longer  cool  and  slim 
and  energetic ;  the  spears  of  Spring  are  gone,  and 
Spring  herself,  though  still  beautiful,  is  plump  and 
voluptuous.  You  admire  her  still,  but  your  admira- 
tion, though  just  as  deep,  perhaps  deeper,  is  not  so 
bright,  it  is  clouded  with  melancholy. 

You  know  not  why  this  should  be  so ;  but  it  is 
quite  natural.  Your  melancholy  is  mortal  dread  of 
change.  You  will  get  over  it.  But  standing  as  you 
do  at  that  mysterious  moment  of  life  when  you  can 
feel  the  transfiguration  of  the  girlhood  of  the  year 
into  something  new  and  strange,  you  cannot  but  feel 
sad.  At  one  moment  she  was  with  you,  elfish, 
capricious,  coy,  and,  even  as  you  stood  in  adoration, 
her  wildness  fell  from  her,  the  coronet  of  may- 
blossom  dropped  from  her  head,  the  violets  faded 
out  of  her  hands,  and  in  a  flash  she  was  gone,  and 
where  she  stood  stands  a  ripe  beauty  with  a  crown 
of  roses  on  her  brow. 


98 


BEFORE   DAWN 


"  Creatures  shall  be  seen  upon  the  earth  who  will  always  be 
fighting  one  with  another  with  very  great  losses  and  frequent 
deaths  on  either  side.  These  shall  set  no  bounds  to  their  malice ; 
by  their  fierce  limbs  a  great  number  of  the  trees  in  the  immense 
forests  of  the  world  shall  be  laid  level  with  the  ground;  and 
when  they  have  crammed  themselves  with  food  it  shall  gratify 
their  desire  to  deal  out  death,  affliction,  labours,  terrors,  and 
banishment  to  every  living  thing.  And  by  reason  of  their 
boundless  pride  they  shall  wish  to  rise  towards  heaven,  but  the 
excessive  weight  of  their  limbs  shall  hold  them  down." — 
From  the  Note-Books  of  Leonardo  da  Vinci — Edward 
M'Curdy's  translation. 


DESERTS   OF   NOISE 

THE  maddest  place  in  all  England  is  Cheap- 
side.  If  you  were  to  describe  it  accurately 
and  put  it  in  a  book  no  one  would  believe 
you.  Yet  there  it  is — a  monstrous  huddle  of  noisome 
traffic — a  roaring  canyon  of  commerce.  Sometimes 
I  go  there,  but  I  always  come  away  with  the  feeling 
that  I  have  been  riding  the  nightmare. 

The  last  time  I  was  there  I  met  a  friend  at  the 
comer  of  Gutter  Lane.  "Listen  to  it,"  I  said  to 
him,  waving  my  right  arm,  to  the  peril  of  the  passer- 
by, "  is  it  not  monstrous  ?  "  He  looked  at  me, 
stupidly,  I  thought.  "  Come  down  here,"  I  con- 
tinued, putting  my  arm  through  his  and  conducting 
him  towards  a  subterranean  cafe ;  "let  us,  like  hunted 
things,  escape  to  earth  !  "  And  down  there,  over 
the  coffee  and  cigarettes,  amid  tobacco  clouds  and 
the  rasp  and  clatter  of  dominoes,  1  told  him  about 
Cheapside.  He  listened  meditatively,  with  a  pained 
expression  coming  and  going  on  his  face,  and  as  we 
left  he  said  with  tragic  conviction,  "  It  will  be  a  sad 
day  for  England  when  there  is  no  noise  in  Cheapside ! " 
With  a  sigh,  I  went  my  ways. 

What   is  happening  in   Cheapside  is  happening 
everywhere.     Cheapside  is  but  the  symbol  of  the 


IOI 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

high  noises  of  modernity  And  we  have  become 
inured  to  them ;  they  have  mastered  us  like  a 
fatality  :  our  indifference  is  resignation. 

So  triumphant  is  the  clangour  that  it  is  now  almost 
impossible  to  realise  its  pressure  on  the  senses  except 
by  sudden  contrast.  So  certain  is  the  grip  of  noise 
that  a  gradual  unloosening  after  flight  to  some 
hushed  rural  place,  although  giving  relief,  does  not 
awaken  us  to  the  tyranny  of  the  thing  itself.  No- 
thing will  do  this  save  a  sudden  change  from  noise  to 
quiet. 

In  London,  where  the  clamour  of  the  age  meets  in 
a  triumphant  crash,  such  an  experience  is  still 
possible.  It  can  be  tried  by  anyone  who  is  not 
quite  tone-deaf,  by  the  simple  process  of  passing 
from  the  hubbub  of  Holborn  into  the  rich  stillness 
of  Staple  Inn.  The  change  is  as  though  the  dance 
of  life  had  suddenly  abandoned  rag-time  for  the 
stately  movement  of  a  minuet. 

When  you  leave  the  fussy  pavement  of  the  great 
thoroughfare,  and  turn  under  the  age-worn  archway 
beneath  the  familiar  timbered  houses,  you  feel  a 
sharp  and  definite  relief  ;  and,  by  the  time  you  have 
fully  entered  the  grey,  cobble-stoned  quadrangle 
with  its  flagged  pathways  laced  and  flecked  with  the 
green  shadows  of  the  plane-trees,  you  find  relief 
giving  place  to  wonder.  It  is  almost  a  physical 
wonder — "  born  of  the  very  sigh  that  silence  heaves," 
and  you  taste  it  deliberately  as  you  taste  the  first 
moments  of  peace  following  bodily  or  mental  pain. 

102 


DESERTS   OF  NOISE 

The  sudden  releasing  of  the  grip  of  noise  brings  you 
face  to  face  with  the  essential  fulness  of  quiet.  You 
are  surprised  to  find  that  quietness  is  full  of  low 
sounds,  like  the  murmuring  of  bees  or  mountain 
streams — sounds  which  are  a  real  part  of  life  and 
which  have  been  obliterated  by  the  outside  clamour. 
And  you  realise  that  your  own  soul,  which  up  to 
now  you  had  somehow  overlooked,  is  not  one  with 
the  noise,  but  kin  to  this  living  silence.  You,  in 
short,  possess  yourself. 

At  other  times  you  own  not  yourself ;  you  are 
possessed  by  the  legioned  devils  of  noise  who  clamour 
indecently  in  the  public  places  for  your  soul.  Every 
time  you  give  way  to  them,  every  time  you  live  them 
down,  they  conquer  you.  There  is  no  escape  save 
flight. 

I  do  not  advise  flight  because  noise  in  itself  is  evil. 
That  would  be  folly,  for  evil,  like  other  abstract 
terms,  is  purely  relative.  Besides,  are  there  not 
noises  which  we  all  know  to  be  good  ?  Noises  which 
spring  from  the  harmony  of  life,  or  from  the  contest 
of  healthy  forces — the  cheers  of  a  multitude  with  a 
united  purpose,  the  cries  and  counter-cries  of  political 
meetings.  These  are  music.  But  the  clatter  of  a 
modern  city  is  not  music  any  more  than  its  smoke 
and  grime  are  decorative  art. 

The  noise  of  a  modern  city  is  nothing  but  the 
creaking  of  the  wheels  of  commerce  ;  it  is  a  shuffling, 
a  colliding,  a  groaning,  a  dissonance  of  expletives. 
...  It  is  the  scurry  of  an  age  which  rushes  hither 

103 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

and  thither  after  it  knows  not  what ;  the  tumult  of 
a  people  who  have  forgotten  the  meaning  of  utility 
in  their  haste  to  buy  and  sell.  Life  has  become  a 
market-place,  a  stock  exchange,  and  repose,  reticence, 
and  quietness  have  been  lost  in  a  maze  of  tradesmen's 
war-whoops,  each  wildly  striving  to  outshout  the 
other. 

Gladly  would  I  ignore  it,  if  that  were  possible. 
But  the  hucksters'  age  insists  upon  breaking  into 
one's  dreams.  The  clamour  is  everywhere — even  in 
the  silences.  It  is  reflected  in  our  cleverness,  our 
smartness,  our  pushfulness.  I  walk  down  the  street 
and  it  yells  at  me  from  the  advertising  hoardings. 
It  shrieks  at  me  from  the  columns  of  the  Press, 
the  pages  of  books,  and  the  frames  of  pictures ; 
it  roars  from  platform  and  pulpit,  and  clatters 
across  the  stage.  Each  individual  sound  seems  to 
say  it  is  the  biggest,  or,  that,  for  it  is  not  easy  to 
distinguish  clearly,  something  it  has  to  sell  is  the 
biggest.  In  vain  I  say  that  I  am  not  out  for  the 
biggest,  that  I  am  quite  content  with  the  best,  and 
can  find  that  out  for  myself.  Heedless,  the  noise 
goes  on,  until  I  realise  that  society  has  ceased  to  be 
a  social  thing,  it  has  become  a  strident  confusion  of 
rattles  of  all  sizes,  each  shaking  against  the  other 
for  prizes  which  demand  more  noise — the  chatter  of 
privilege,  the  loudness  of  riches. 

But  do  not  imagine  that  I  would  substitute  a 
Trappist  silence.  I  have  no  such  desire.  My  love 
of  sane  and  healthy  sounds  is  too  deep-rooted  for 

104 


DESERTS   OF  NOISE 

that.  The  noises  of  our  strident  age  are  not  healthy  : 
they  are  a  disease,  a  form  of  waste.  Shouting  is  not 
progress,  much  less  discordant  shouting.  At  times 
I  am  inclined  to  the  belief  that  all  this  noise  is  a  sign 
of  failure,  an  elegy  of  despair.  The  discord  of 
modern  life,  whether  it  be  the  roar  of  the  street,  the 
bickering  of  the  Stock  Exchange,  the  shouting  of  the 
advertiser — that  specialist  of  noise — or  the  crowing 
of  fashion,  is  probably  nothing  more  than  the  wailing 
of  a  lost  multitude,  of  a  people  who  have  mislaid  life's 
highway,  and,  like  the  blind  folk  in  Maeterlinck's 
play,  are  calling  pitiful  and  chimerical  directions  to 
each  other. 

In  the  meantime  I  shall  resist  the  temptation  of 
adding  my  cry  to  the  tumult — no  one  would  hear  me. 
I  shall  keep  quiet,  and  occasionally  retreat  under  the 
old  archway  by  Holborn  Bars  and  taste  the  stillness 
of  Staple  Inn.  1  shall  rest  awhile  on  the  seat  sur- 
rounding the  centre  plane-tree,  and  reflect  securely 
upon  the  blind,  mad  age  outside,  with  which  I  shall 
have  no  traffic. 


i°5 


TORPOR 

IN  a  little  cluster  of  mean  streets  packed  in 
between  the  lower  end  of  Shaftesbury  Avenue 
and  New  Oxford  Street,  amid  a  welter  of 
coster  stalls  loaded  with  vegetables  and  fish,  reek- 
ing eating-houses  with  bubbling  pans  of  sausage  in 
their  windows,  and  tenth-rate  dram-shops,  stands 
the  Church  of  St  Giles,  Bloomsbury.  Its  columned 
Renaissance  spire,  weathered  to  that  rich,  shadowy 
greyness  which  makes  the  stones  of  London  a 
joy  for  ever,  rises  aloft  majestically  like  a  piece  of 
wrought  silver.  The  beauty  of  its  eaves  mingles 
pleasantly  with  the  green  of  the  foliage  in  the  little 
churchyard,  which  reposes  like  an  oasis  in  a  desert 
of  brick  and  asphalt. 

Across  this  desert  wayfarers  are  continually 
passing  and  repassing — hungry  folk  and  weary, 
who  seem  doomed  to  wander  up  and  down  the  town 
like  bewildered  ghosts.  To-day  there  are  more 
than  usual,  and  as  I  walk  through  the  oasis  of  the 
churchyard  of  St  Giles  I  notice  the  seats  are  all 
occupied.  But  still  more  weary  ones  come  with 
starved  looks,  seeking  rest,  only  to  pass  on  hopelessly 
with  shuffling  gait  to  the  bigger  oases  of  the  Thames 
Embankment  or  the  great  parks,  where  they  can 

106 


TORPOR 

rest  within  the  shadow  of  royal  palaces  and  the 
gathering  places  of  the  Olympians. 

There  is  a  quietness  in  St  Giles'  churchyard, 
a  religious  peace,  lulled  gently  by  the  eternal  song 
of  London,  that  grinding  orchestration  of  its  immense 
traffic,  reduced  here  to  a  piping  melody  that  can 
scarcely  hold  its  own  with  the  cheerful  and  incessant 
bickering  of  the  sparrows.  The  poor  have  yielded 
to  the  calming  influences,  and  they  sleep.  Busy 
people  pass  through  the  churchyard  and  look  upon 
the  sleepers  generally  with  superior  scorn,  but 
sometimes  they  try  to  avert  their  faces  with  a 
pained  look,  as  though  they  were  accidentally  made 
privy  to  a  shameful  thing.  A  telegraph  boy  enters 
the  gateway  whistling  merrily,  but  stops  suddenly 
and  hurries  through  the  sorry  dormitory  with  a 
blush  on  his  cheeks.  A  policeman  stands  motionless 
beside  the  church  door,  like  a  new  kind  of  ecclesias- 
tical symbolism  ;  and  a  grey  cat  glides  suspiciously 
among  the  sleepers. 

I  pass  along  unostentatiously,  noting  the  seats  and 
their  occupants.  On  the  first  are  three  men — one  an 
old  man  with  a  long  beard  yellow  with  neglect,  and 
pale,  gaunt  cheeks ;  he  sleeps  like  a  child,  his  battered 
and  greasy  felt  hat  resting  idly  in  his  lap ;  next  to 
him,  his  head  resting  upon  his  arm,  which  lies  along 
the  back  of  the  seat,  is  a  decently-clad  young  man 
with  a  face  like  a  death-mask ;  and  in  the  far  corner 
a  ruddy  and  hairy-faced  tramp  in  ragged  corduroys 
snoring  luxuriously. 

107 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

Farther  along  on  the  opposite  side  is  another 
group  of  human  wreckage.  There  are  four  here : 
three  men,  two  of  whom  hang  limply  over  the  arms 
at  either  end,  and  an  old  and  wrinkled  woman, 
sitting  upright,  and  muttering  in  her  sleep.  Three 
women  occupy  the  next  seat ;  all  are  in  rags  and 
filth  that  shame  the  day.  They  are  awake ;  two 
are  talking  listlessly,  one  adjusting  her  grotesquely 
dilapidated  bonnet  the  while,  with  a  pitifully 
automatic  reminiscence  of  past  coquetry.  The 
third  is  a  half-crazed  creature  of  about  thirty ;  her 
tangled  black  hair  is  streaked  with  grey  ;  upon  her 
feet  are  a  pair  of  men's  heavy  boots,  ridiculously 
broken  and  worn,  and  tied  round  the  insteps  with 
pieces  of  faded  red  rag ;  she  wears  a  rent  black 
skirt  and  a  mangy  blue  woollen  coat  pinned  together 
and  open  at  the  throat,  showing  a  leaden,  stringy 
neck,  but  no  sign  of  any  under-garment.  She  is 
eating  a  faded  apple,  and  as  I  pass  she  leers  inanely, 
and  says  with  vindictive  affability,  "  'Ere  we  are, 
sir,  all  a-blowin'  and  a-growin'." 

So  I  pass  on.  Seat  after  seat,  each  with  its 
scrap-heap  of  useless  humanit\%  line  the  pathway ; 
it  is  like  walking  through  an  avenue  of  the  dead. 
Happily  they  sleep,  a  comfortless  sleep,  to  be  sure, 
but  such  as  it  is  it  brings  oblivion.  I  can  see  only 
one  other  person  awake.  He  is  a  hopeless  man  in 
shiny  black,  a  decayed  clerk,  probably,  and  he  turns 
over  a  bundle  of  soiled  letters,  characters,  letters 
of  recommendation,  maybe,  full  of  ironical  praise 

108 


TORPOR 

of  his  virtues  and  capabilities.  He,  hopeless  though 
he  is,  has  obviously  not  yet  given  up  hope — he  is 
the  one  tragic  figure  of  the  place,  because  the  sense 
of  contest  in  him  is  still  alive;  he  alone  amid  all 
those  derelict  beings  is  conscious  of  the  will  to  live. 
The  rest  are  alive,  but  dead :  the  will  to  live 
has  flickered  out  of  their  consciousness ;  they  are 
indifferent  to  all  sense  of  contest,  and  the  desire 
of  conquest  is  no  more ;  they  have  surrendered  to 
circumstances  in  the  unequal  battle  for  bread,  and 
lie  here  broken,  useless,  scrapped. 
•  •••■.. 

Why  do  they  go  on  living,  I  wonder,  as  I  turn 
from  this  human  scrap-yard.  Death  is  such  a  simple 
thing  compared  with  this.  Besides,  they  are  in- 
different to  pain — ah,  that  is  it.  They  are  indif- 
ferent to  pain,  they  no  longer  feel  the  pain  of  life, 
therefore  they  do  not  think  of  death.  People  who  are 
happy  or  in  pain  think  of  death — the  rest  are  dead. 
••••... 

Outside  in  High  Street,  Bloomsbury,  an  organ 
is  playing  Mr  Harry  Lauder's  song,  "I  know  a 
Lassie,"  and  a  number  of  ragged  but  merry  children 
are  dancing.  Up  and  down  the  pavement  they  go, 
shaking  their  skirts  and  kicking  their  heels  like  a 
mad  rout  of  elves.  They  take  up  snatches  of  the 
chorus : 

"  As  sweet  as  the  heather, 
The  bonnie  purple  heather, 

Mary,  my  Highland  belle,'1 

109 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

and  the  bright-faced  Italian  woman  who  plays  the 
organ  smiles  appreciatively  as  their  shrill  voices 
rise  over  the  din  of  the  street. 

Suddenly  the  organ  stops  and  the  dancing  ceases. 
Men  remove  their  hats  and  look  thoughtful.  A 
funeral  is  passing.  When  it  is  out  of  sight  the  music 
begins  again. 

•  •••••* 

I  cross  the  road  towards  Oxford  Street,  and 
before  turning  the  corner  I  look  back  at  St  Giles'. 
The  silver-grey  spire  looks  peaceful  and  beautiful 
in  the  sunny  autumn  noon.  The  policeman  has 
walked  out  of  the  churchyard  and  he  is  "  moving 
on  "  some  derelicts  who  have  been  resting  against  the 
railings.  I  catch  a  last  glimpse  of  the  sleepers — the 
seats  look  like  open  graves,  and  I  feel  the  whole  of 
society  is  being  affected  by  their  decay.  .  .  . 

"  Move  along,  there,  move  along,"  I  can  just  hear 
the  officer.  But  over  the  gateway  of  St  Giles'  I 
see  an  unwritten  legend :  "  Rubbish  may  be  shot 
here." 


no 


HUNGER-TAMENESS 

IT  was  one  of  those  familiar  spring  days  which 
belie  the  calendar.  There  was  a  wind,  a  keen 
and  penetrating  wind ;  a  wind  that  discovered 
your  weaker  spots  with  wonderful  precision.  It 
caught  up  little  patches  of  dust  in  the  roadways, 
whirled  them  round  until  they  looked  like  ghostly 
Dervishes,  and  then  scattered  them  into  oblivion. 
It  was  a  merry  wind,  but  its  humour  was  vindictive. 
It  stung  my  face  as  I  stood  indecisively  in  a  diminu- 
tive maze  of  crossing  streets  between  the  Law 
Courts  and  Kingsway  ;  and  it  seemed  to  be  enjoying 
itself  so  heartily  as  it  scampered  along  a  little  lane, 
after  an  invigorating  romp  over  the  vacant  spaces 
of  the  Strand  "  improvement,"  that  I  marvelled 
at  its  spite. 

As  I  stood  for  a  moment  taking  my  bearings, 
which  the  most  habitual  Londoner  is  forced  to  do 
every  now  and  then  in  this  wilderness  of  streets,  I 
became  conscious  of  a  certain  raggedness  about  me. 
It  was  not  in  the  actual  locality,  that  bore  marked 
evidences  of  rebuilding  and  was  still  neat  and 
clean ;  neither  was  it  in  the  atmosphere,  for  such  a 
wind  had  no  mercy  on  stray  wisps  and  remnants 
of  fog,  even  had  they  shown  any  desire  to  hang 

in 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

themselves  about  at  the  time,  which  they  certainly 
had  not.  I  eventually  realised  that  it  was  in  the 
people;  not  the  rapid  passer-by,  but  the  loiterers 
who  are  to  be  found  in  every  street,  and  who  may 
be  said  to  be  the  street's  inhabitants  as  distinct 
from  the  inhabitants  of  the  houses.  They  were  not 
ordinary  loiterers,  however,  men  lapped  in  a  sort  of 
Nirvana  of  idleness,  but  loiterers  with  a  purpose. 
At  every  corner  they  stood ;  eager  little  groups 
of  dejected  men  of  all  ages,  but  mostly  middle- 
aged  to  old,  or  that  indefinite  age  which  is  a 
characteristic  of  so  many  poor  adults,  and  they 
seemed  to  be  watching,  hungrily,  I  imagined,  a  stout 
constable  who  paced  serenely  up  and  down  the 
middle  of  the  broadest  of  the  adjoining  streets, 
sometimes  stopping  and  looking  about  him  with 
blank  severity. 

I  had  hardly  time  to  reflect  on  this  curious  and 
scattered  dejectedness,  which  struck  me  suddenly  in 
the  manner  of  a  dream,  when  something  happened ; 
it  was  something  very  simple — the  policeman 
raised  a  hand  aloft ;  but  the  effect  was  like  the 
releasing  of  a  spring  which  sets  an  intricate  machine 
in  motion.  The  ragged  men  seemed  to  be  awaiting 
this  signal,  for  they  were  suddenly  thrown  into 
activity.  In  a  moment  every  avenue  in  the  vicinity 
shot  forth  a  stream  of  abject  humanity — greasy, 
ragged,  careworn,  dilapidated  human  beings,  who 
shuffled — I  could  not  call  it  running — towards  a 
spot  near  the  constable.     Their  very  eagerness  was 

112 


HUNGER-TAMENESS 

unclean,  their  presence  unseemly.  Yet  in  some 
strange  way  I  felt  linked  with  them  and  their 
destiny  ;  not  in  brotherhood,  but  in  kind ;  I  was 
of  their  species  and  I  felt  ashamed,  ashamed  of 
them,  ashamed  for  them,  and  ashamed  of  myself. 

The  constable  stood  in  the  roadway,  a  plump, 
haughty  figure.  The  tatterdemalions  darted  past 
him  from  all  directions,  colliding  against  one  another 
in  the  gutter  before  the  door  of  a  religious  mission. 
A  silent,  half-hearted  little  struggle  followed ;  the 
cluster  of  shuffling  beings  looked  like  a  writhing 
heap  of  rags,  like  offal  disturbed  by  decomposition. 
The  policeman  eyed  it  critically  ;  and  a  few  passers- 
by  stopped  before  going  on  their  way.  Soon  the 
human  tangle  unravelled  itself  into  a  queue  of  fifty 
or  sixty  men,  in  the  gutter. 

"  Why  do  they  wait  ?  "  I  said,  approaching  the 
portly  officer. 

"  For  soup,"  he  replied  simply,  sardonically. 

"  When  do  they  get  it  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  At  half-past  four." 

It  was  just  three  o'clock. 

"  Have  they  been  waiting  long  ?  "  I  inquired. 

"  All  day." 

This  is  heroic,  I  thought,  and  I  walked  over  to 
look  at  the  thin  grey  line.  What  a  crew  !  There 
was  not  a  decent  garment  among  them,  not  a  clean 
body.  The  line  was  but  an  anxious  empty  stomach 
covered  with  rags  and  filth.  It  emitted  a  foetid 
odour  like  a  midden.  Unclean,  unkempt,  unfed, 
h  113 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

it   stood   and   shivered — almost  unrecognisable   as 
human. 

The  individuality  of  the  separate  members  of  the 
ragged  queue,  such  as  it  was,  was,  as  usual  in  crowds, 
merged  in  the  individuality  of  mass.  There  were 
different  features  and  certain  ludicrous  distinctions 
among  the  rags  which  covered  their  limp  bodies. 
There  were  shades  of  pallor  and  greyness  in  the 
faces ;  degrees  in  the  sunkenness  of  cheeks ;  grades 
in  beards,  from  grisly  stubble  to  flowing  yellowy 
white ;  some  high  cheek  -  bones  shone  blue  with 
cold;  there  were  red  noses,  sore  eyes,  and  fester- 
ing necks. 

Among  the  garments  were  frock  coats,  and  tweed 
lounge  coats ;  some  had  great  rents,  others  were 
patched  carelessly ;  one  buttonless  frock  coat  was 
threaded  up  the  front  with  string ;  through  a 
broken  seam  in  the  back  I  could  see  the  man's 
pallid  flesh  :  he  wore  no  under-garments.  Trousers 
hung  baggy,  limp,  and  frayed ;  and  boots  were 
manifold  in  abject  characteristics — all  were  burst, 
none  had  heels  ;  one  creature  wore  tennis  shoes  tied 
about  the  instep  with  strips  of  dirty  calico,  another 
wore  the  sorriest  patent  leathers  I  had  ever  seen. 
Their  hats  were  grotesque  in  their  battered  and 
greasy  variety. 

These  details  had  to  be  sought  out ;  to  the  casual 
glance  they  did  not  exist.  The  queue  was  a  thing  in 
itself,  a  silent,  patient  thing ;  a  tabid  line  of  men ; 
a  wrecked,  wasted  line  of  superfluous  humanity  ;  an 

114 


HUNGER  TAMENESS 

evil-smelling  scrap-heap  gradually  decomposing.  It 
sidled  and  snivelled  ;  sometimes  it  laughed  hoarsely 
and  sometimes  it  swore ;  it  spat  and  grunted  and 
swayed  slightly,  shuffling  from  one  foot  to  the  other ; 
here  and  there  it  smoked,  in  foul  little  pipes,  dis- 
carded bits  of  tobacco  and  cigar  ends,  picked  up  in 
the  gutter.  It  was  long-suffering,  but  tame  ;  it  was 
dirty  and  hungry,  but  patient. 

My  shame  deepened  as  I  reviewed  the  sorry  line. 
I  felt  as  though  in  the  presence  of  deformed  naked- 
ness. I  had  an  impulse  to  take  the  thing  into  an 
eating-house  and  gorge  it  with  food.  I  smiled  as  I 
thought  of  the  consternation  of  the  manager  of 
the  Holborn  Restaurant  if  we  marched  into  his 
sumptuous  halls.  I  walked  away  some  paces  and 
then  stood  looking  back  at  it.  I  was  spell-bound. 
It  overpowered  me.  I  wanted  to  talk  to  someone 
about  it,  but  everybody  was  in  a  hurry,  none  seemed 
to  care,  and  few  to  notice.  I  was  not  so  much 
impressed  by  its  squalor  as  by  its  tameness — the 
slow  decay,  the  evil-smelling  tameness  of  the  thing, 
obsessed  me. 

I  thought  of  certain  animals  and  how  hunger 
makes  them  fierce  and  brave.  I  saw  a  hungry 
tigress  with  her  cubs.  I  saw  her  spring  upon 
another  animal,  rending  and  devouring  it,  and  the 
little  ones  dabbled  appreciatively  in  the  blood, 
before  snuggling  into  their  dam's  replenished  breasts. 
Hungry  savages  peopled  my  brain,  but  none  stood 
in  queues  awaiting  soup.     They  were  fierce,  they 

"5 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

did  not  wait  for  food  to  be  given  them,  they  took 
it.  Sometimes  there  was  no  food  and  nothing  to 
kill ;  then  they  lay  down  and  died ;  but  whilst 
there  was  the  least  chance  of  food  they  took  it,  even 
if  in  the  taking  of  it  they  were  killed.  That  struck 
me  as  splendid.  But  these  men  starved  patiently. 
There  was  food  all  about  them — in  the  warehouses, 
in  the  shop  windows,  in  the  eating-houses ;  they 
knew  it  was  there,  they  could  see  it,  smell  it,  but 
not  eat  it — and  they  became  tame,  not  fierce  like 
the  animals. 

I  felt  that  Nature  had  produced  in  them  some- 
thing new  ;  she  had  produced  patience  with  hunger, 
she  had  made  it  possible  for  beings  to  fester  and 
decompose  without  resistance,  to  be  acquiescent  in 
a  living  death.  She  had  created  something  lower 
than  the  brutes. 

I  took  another  look  at  the  ragged  thing,  and  left 
it  standing  there,  watched  by  the  portly  constable, 
awaiting  the  coming  of  charity. 


116 


IMMORTAL   RUSSIA 

(1908) 
I 

I  WAS  sitting  in  a  little  cafe"  in  a  little  street  just 
off  the  Rue  Sainte  Honore ;  one  of  those  streets 
which  are  familiar  in  the  centre  of  Paris,  more  like 
a  chasm  than  a  street ;  one  of  those  cafes  common 
to  every  town  in  France,  a  little  narrow  place  with 
little  tables  and  white  cloths,  awaiting  diners,  and  a 
row  of  smaller  round  tables  and  iron  chairs  between 
two  wooden  partitions  abutting  on  to  the  pavement 
of  the  street.     I  sat  at  one  of  these. 

My  eyes  had  wandered  up  the  tall  stucco  front 
of  the  opposite  house.  It  had  a  double  door  with 
upper  panels  of  fretted  ironwork,  behind  which  was 
glass,  and  the  rows  of  tall  windows  had  shutters 
painted  a  dull  red.  One  of  the  shutters  was  unhinged, 
and  swung  to  and  fro — I  wondered  idly  why  no  one 
fastened  it.  The  house  was  painted  grey — Parisian 
grey,  the  grey  that  looks  as  if  it  had  once  been  white, 
which  it  probably  had  been  ;  the  grey  that  turns  to 
purple  and  blue  with  the  changing  light.  I  again 
wondered  why.  I  wondered  why  it  did  not  turn 
green  and  pink  and   saffron — and  saw  no  reason 

117 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

why  it  should  not  do  so,  or  even  chequer  and  line 
and  foliate — why  not  ? 

No,  it  was  not  absinthe.  It  was  bock,  le  bon  bock 
— a  pointed  flagon  and  a  golden  liquid — and,  as  yet, 
I  had  not  touched  it.  It  was  simply  idleness.  I 
had  nothing  else  to  do,  and  I  was  the  only  customer. 
Presently,  however,  two  young  men  sauntered  in 
and  occupied  chairs  in  the  corner  on  my  right. 
They  were  dressed  in  the  sober  black  of  the  gay  city, 
with  black  soft  hats,  dilapidated  of  brim,  and 
flowing  black  ties  hanging  over  their  coats.  One 
was  clean-shaven,  the  other  the  same,  save  for  a  line 
of  black  hair  on  the  upper  lip,  like  a  strayed  eyebrow. 
In  a  little  while  they  were  joined  by  a  third,  a  tall, 
heavy-featured  young  man,  also  all  black,  except 
for  his  hair  and  beard,  which  were  flaming  red ; 
the  first  cropped  short,  the  last  wild  and  bushy. 
He  was  clearly  a  Russian  ;  if  his  beard  had  been 
black,  he  would  have  been  the  Russian  of  fiction. 
The  others  were  Russian  also,  but,  after  the  manner 
of  Russians  in  Paris,  they  looked  like  Frenchmen, 
and  spoke  the  language  of  France.  They  talked 
very  quietly  but  earnestly.  I  could  only  catch 
a  word  or  so.  The  youth  with  the  moustache  seemed 
dejected.  "  What's  the  use  ?  "  he  kept  on  asking. 
The  red  Russian  was  reasonable,  rational,  argumenta- 
tive ;  whilst  the  clean-shaven  man  showed  some- 
thing like  passion  ;  he  seemed  to  burn  with  a  fierce 
enthusiasm  which  now  looked  like  hate  and  now  like 
the  sort  of  love  you  give  to  a  child.     I  only  caught 

118 


IMMORTAL  RUSSIA 

one  burning  phrase  from  his  lips :  "  Russia  is 
immortal ! "  It  was  uttered  with  the  irrational 
finality  of  conviction.  And  just  as  I  had  thought 
idly  about  the  swinging  shutter  and  the  iridescent 
greyness  of  the  house  opposite,  I  thought,  or  rather 
felt,  about  Russia. 


II 

I  saw  that  great  country  in  a  fresh  light.  Her 
wracked  and  tortured  body  no  longer  represented  a 
shuddering  people  awaiting  the  coming  of  a  leader. 
It  was  the  expression  of  the  long  agony  of  the 
pathway  to  Freedom.  Russia  has  no  supreme 
pathway  to  Freedom.  Russia,  I  thought,  has  no 
supreme  man  because  she  is  a  supreme  nation — 
what  has  individual  supremacy  to  do  with  her  great 
courage,  her  eternal  revolt,  her  savage  determination 
and  patience  ?  One  of  these  days  we  shall  know  that 
these  qualities  have  made  the  Russians  the  master- 
people  of  civilisation.  If  the  Revolution  fail,  Russia 
will  still  be  supreme.  She  will  be  supreme  in  spite 
even  of  victory,  as  she  is  supreme  in  spite  of  defeat, 
because  she  can  abandon  herself  with  eternal  hope 
and  without  regret.  Russia  has  the  spirit  to  take 
great  risks  and  to  make  great  sacrifices.  She  has 
courage :  courage  in  power  and  weakness,  in  virtue 
and  vice,  in  ignorance,  in  knowledge,  in  imagination  ; 
she  thrives  on  destruction,  like  an  admiral^who 
survives  by  burning  his  ships. 

119 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

The  very  weakness  of  Russia  is  a  kind  of  strength. 
The  Governors  are  strong  in  their  mortality  before  the 
bullet  and  the  bomb  ;  the  people  are  strong  in  their 
tortured  bodies  and  in  the  long  silences  of  Siberia. 
The  personality  of  Russia  is  a  flaming  sword — its 
metal  has  been  fired  by  revolt  and  tempered  by  snow 
— it  shines  like  a  beacon  over  the  world.  It  shines 
in  a  noble  and  passionate  art,  which  Russians  do  not 
only  make  for  themselves,  if  they  make  it  at  all  for 
themselves,  which  I  sometimes  doubt.  Perhaps  they 
do  not  want  art  because  they  are  too  busy  living 
and  dying.  Art  is  civilised  and  tame ;  art  is  for 
Paris,  for  London,  for  Vienna,  not  for  Warsaw  and 
Moscow  and  Odessa.  Russia  thrives  on  sacrifice, 
not  art.  She  conquers  the  invader  by  burning 
down  Moscow  and  the  Revolution  by  precipitating 
it. 

There  is,  however,  an  art  she  keeps  for  herself. 
It  is  the  great  ironic  art — the  art  of  tragedy.  Tragedy 
is  her  normal  state.  No  other  nation  as  a  nation 
can  love  and  hate  like  Russia.  No  other  nation 
could  bear  such  sufferings  with  dry  eyes  and  with 
laughter.  Her  life  to  the  outer  world  looks  like  an 
infinite  succession  of  deaths — yet  of  no  people  does 
the  world  expect  so  much.  Russia  is  the  prophet 
out  of  the  Galilee  of  civilisation — her  cross  lies 
heavy  on  her,  but  she  does  not  cry  out  that  she  is 
forsaken  of  God — she  laughs. 

The  throne  of  Russia  is  fenced  about  by  lies, 
glorified   by   the   priests,   and   defended   by   rifles, 

120 


IMMORTAL   RUSSIA 

whips,  and  swords.  The  Czar  withholds  from  his 
people  a  freedom  he  has  given  to  the  Cossacks  in 
exchange  for  their  services  as  the  instruments  of  his 
tyranny.  The  peasants,  after  having  been  freed 
from  one  form  of  slavery  and  thrown  into  another, 
are  shot  down  because  they  cry  out  in  their  bondage 
of  want,  and  their  little  starving  communes  are 
destroyed.  And  so  it  is  always ;  what  one  hand 
of  the  Little  Father  gives  the  other  takes  away. 
Yet  he  cannot  kill  his  people  any  more  than  they 
can  kill  him  or  his  system.  But,  after  all,  he  is  not 
killing  them,  he  is  creating  them.  The  Russian 
people  is  not  yet  born ;  the  pains  of  Russia  are  the 
pains  of  labour.     Russia  is  a  woman  in  agony. 

Again,  paradox  that  she  is,  she  is  more  than  this. 
She  is  not  wholly  woman,  although  the  central 
figures  of  her  drama  are  women,  Sophie  Perovskaya 
and  Marie  Spiridinova  :  she  is  almost  a  god.  She 
kills  and  laughs.  Assassination  with  her  is  virtue. 
She  rushes  into  the  fiery  furnace,  certain  that  one  day 
she  will  come  out  unscathed,  as  Shadrach,  Meshach, 
and  Abed-nego  did.  Individually  her  people  are 
like  satyrs  ;  in  the  mass,  Dionysos — that  is  why  they 
sacrifice  themselves  with  joy. 

Death  stalks  through  her  cities.  It  dogs  the 
footsteps  of  student  and  peasant  and  workman, 
and  of  the  Cossacks  marching  bomb-file  through 
the  streets  of  Warsaw — yet  the  cafes  are  crowded, 
and  hilarious  shouting  and  the  clatter  of  glasses 
almost    drowns    the    orchestra    screaming    madly 

121 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

La  Matchiche  or  dreaming  voluptuously  Quand 
V Amour  Meurt ;  and  over  the  smouldering  chaos 
of  Baku,  over  the  pain  and  death  of  the  desolate 
city,  floats  like  a  challenge  the  ribald  song  of  a 
chanteuse. 


Ill 

Thus  I  saw  Russia,  in  a  swift  series  of  ideas  and 
pictures,  as  one  sees  life  from  the  window  of  a 
railway  train  whilst  discussing  the  changing  view 
with  a  friend,  and  then  my  eyes  drifted  again 
towards  the  swinging  shutter  of  the  house  opposite ; 
no  one  came  to  fasten  it ;  but  I  no  longer  wondered 
why,  I  took  it  for  granted  as  one  takes  life  for 
granted,  as  the  world  takes  Russia  for  granted.  The 
little  tables  began  to  attract  people ;  they  sat  in 
twos  and  threes  chatting,  smoking,  drinking.  A 
plump  woman  sat  next  to  a  plump  man ;  she  ate 
olives  dreamily  out  of  a  white  paper  in  her  hand, 
between  appreciative  draughts  of  bock.  The  man 
read  VAurore,  every  now  and  then  reading  a  passage 
aloud  for  her  ears.  An  elderly  gentleman  drank 
black  coffee  out  of  a  tumbler,  and  looked  into  space 
through  clouds  of  cigarette  smoke.  A  dejected 
person  with  lank  hair  dropped  water  out  of  a  bowl 
on  to  an  oblong  piece  of  sugar  held  in  a  spoon  over 
a  glass  of  absinthe,  his  eyes  following  the  delicate 
green  clouding  of  his  liquor  with  enthusiasm.  "  Le 
Matin  ?  "  queried  a  news  vendor  at  my  elbow.    "  No, 

122 


IMMORTAL   RUSSIA 

thanks,"  I  said  forgetfully  in  English.  His  face 
lit  up  intelligently,  and  he  offered  me  first  the 
Daily  Mail,  then  some  mildly  indecent  picture 
postcards.     He  recognised  my  nationality. 

The  three  men  were  still  drinking  and  talking, 
talking,  talking — every  word  a  dream  of  Russia — 
every  thought  a  pain.  Russia  is  immortal,  I  reflected, 
as  I  turned  down  an  empty  glass.  "  Vive  la  Russie  " 
were  the  parting  words  I  heard  as  the  three  were 
joined  by  another,  and  I  walked  away  into  the 
laughter  of  Paris. 


123 


INTRODUCTIONS 


MAURICE  MAETERLINCK 


IT  is  customary  in  our  time  to  classify  certain 
writers  as  modern,  and  by  the  use  of  the  word 
we  probably  mean  to  indicate  those  writers 
whose  work,  whilst  being  in  the  tradition  of  great 
art,  is  primarily  moved  by  the  ideas,  feelings,  and 
aspirations  of  our  own  age.  No  art,  any  more  than 
life  itself,  can  be  quite  independent  of  its  forbears  ; 
art,  like  life,  builds  on  old  foundations,  and  traditions 
may  be  modified  but  they  are  rarely  scrapped.  Those 
who  are  called  modern  simply  vary  the  texture  of  the 
edifice,  give  a  new  turn  to  the  foliation,  a  fresh 
balance  to  the  design,  or  a  different  accent  to  the 
corner-stone.  Maurice  Maeterlinck  belongs  to  such 
moderns.  His  ideas  and  his  art  are  obviously 
linked  with  the  past  both  immediate  and  remote,  yet 
together  they  form  an  art- work  which  is  peculiar 
to  our  day  and  to  its  author.  That  is  why  it  is 
misleading  to  give  him  an  ancestral  label,  as  some 
critics  have  desired  to  do.  There  are  better  grounds 
for  calling  him,  at  least  in  so  far  as  his  ideas  are 
concerned,  a  Belgian  Emerson,  as  Mr  James  Huneker 
has  done,  than  a  Belgian  Shakespeare,  after  the 

127 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

manner  of  his  earliest  and  most  enthusiastic  French 
critic,  M.  Octave  Mirbeau.  All  such  attempts  to 
pigeon-hole  genius  are,  however,  unsound.  Maeter- 
linck is  a  Flemish  Maeterlinck,  with  all  the  leanings 
of  his  race  towards  the  practical  side  of  mysticism. 
He  was  born  in  Belgium,  and  it  was  the  Admirable 
Ruysbroeck,  the  passionate  and  austere  Flemish 
mystic,  who  first  fired  his  inward  vision. 

The  city  of  his  birth  was  Ghent,  one  of  those 
cities  which  stand  between  two  eras,  that  of  modern 
commerce,  with  its  workshops  and  machines,  and 
that  of  the  slow  industry  of  the  peasant  past,  much 
as  it  lies  between  the  mediaeval  dream  of  Bruges 
and  the  brisk  wakefulness  of  Parisian  Brussels. 
These  accidents  of  locality  have  woven  themselves 
into  the  art  of  Maurice  Maeterlinck,  for  a  man 
becomes  a  part  of  the  city  and  country  in  which 
he  has  lived  and  dreamed.  He  was  born  on  29th 
August  1862,  of  old  Flemish  stock,  and  trained  for 
the  law.  But  he  soon  abandoned  the  legal  gown 
and  went  to  Paris,  where  he  became  an  associate 
of  the  Symbolist  group  of  writers,  collaborated  in  the 
production  of  Ple'iade,  one  of  those  short-lived 
reviews  whose  importance  is  only  recognised  years 
after  their  death,  and  in  1889,  when  he  was  twenty 
seven  years  old,  he  ventured  into  separate  print 
with  a  small  volume  of  poems  bearing  the  suggestive 
title  "  Serres  Chaudes."  Moth-like  little  poems 
they  were,  beating  soft  wings  against  the  dim-lit 
windows  of    a    new    realm  of    consciousness,   and 

128 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

obviously  related  to  the  indefinite  symbolism  of 
Stephane  Mallarme  and  the  ill-fated  Arthur  Rim- 
baud ;  yet  in  them  is  to  be  found  the  first  glimmering 
of  that  strange  light  which  he  afterwards  threw  upon 
the  helplessness  of  man  before  the  blows  of  destiny. 

But  these  poems  were  also  the  outcome  of  earlier 
and  deeper  influences.  Maeterlinck  had  brooded 
alone  in  the  silence  of  the  cloud-swept  plains  of  his 
native  Flanders.  Sauntering  along  the  still  canals 
where  the  barges  drifted  lazily,  or  among  quiet 
farmlands  where  the  slow  peasants  seemed  one  with 
the  brooding  landscape,  and  in  his  father's  garden, 
he  cultivated  unconsciously  that  inward-looking 
habit  which,  though  latent  in  all  men,  becomes 
conscious  only  in  the  few,  and  which  would  seem  to 
be  an  intimate  part  of  the  lives  of  those  who  live  in 
countries  where  the  sky  sweeps  magnificently  over 
long  rolling  plains.  The  homely  things  of  the 
countryside  moved  him  to  wonder  and  delight,  the 
cottage  flowers,  the  bees,  the  faithfulness  of  dogs, 
and  the  busy  and  ancient  craftsmanship  of  the 
lacemakers.  And  every  now  and  then  noble  relics 
of  the  past  would  come  in  his  way,  feudal  castle 
and  Gothic  minster,  forming  the  scenario  of  a  mind 
which  was  already  peopled  with  a  romantic  dramatis 
personce. 

He  was  naturally  drawn  towards  minds  of  his 

own  kin ;    and  besides  Ruysbroeck  the  Admirable, 

he    consorted    with    Novalis,    Swedenborg,    Jacob 

Boehme,  Plato,   Plotinus,  and  our  own  Emerson, 

i  129 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

Coleridge  and  Carlyle.  He  brooded  over  the  spiritual 
deeps  of  these  sages  until  he  saw  in  them  the  reflec- 
tion of  his  own  ideas.  But  he  was  not  only  drawn 
towards  the  mystics  :  his  reading  was  as  catholic 
as  it  was  profound.  He  sat  long  at  table  with  the 
modern  French  writers,  and  longer  still  with  the  great 
dramatists  of  the  Renaissance,  more  particularly 
Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethans,  with  whom 
he  drank  deep,  and  thus  laid  the  foundations  of  that 
intimacy  with  the  works  of  our  national  poet  which 
astounds  English  readers  of  his  essays. 

His  early  interest  in  the  mystics  found  separate 
expression  in  his  translations  of  works  by  Ruys- 
broeck  and  Novalis  in  1891  and  1895,  to  both  of  which 
he  added  sympathetic  and  illuminating  introductions. 
But  whilst  he  was  studying  the  mystics  and  trans- 
lating their  works,  other  matters  engaged  his  atten- 
tion ;  for  as  in  after  life  his  concern  for  art  is  never 
far  removed  from  an  equal  concern  for  practical 
ideas,  so  in  those  young  days  absorption  of  mystical 
wisdom  impelled  him  towards  artistic  expression ; 
and  side  by  side  with  his  translations  from  Ruys- 
broeck  and  Novalis  came  poems  and  stories  and  plays 
which  brought  him  fame  in  his  own  country  and 
France,  the  country  of  his  adoption,  long  before 
Pelleas    and    Melisanda    gave    him    English    and 
American  repute.     His   first  published   play,   The 
Princess  Maleine,  appeared  in  1890,  and  the  same 
year    saw    the    issue    of    The   Sightless    and    The 
Intruder.    Between    the  first    play   and    the    two 

130 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

latter  there  is  a  marked  difference.  The  former, 
like  his  early  story,  "  The  Massacre  of  the  Innocents," 
is  obsessed  by  death  and  violence,  and  it  is  only  in 
certain  vivid  flashes  of  dialogue  that  we  get  a  hint 
of  the  essential  Maeterlinck  who  begins  to  come 
into  his  kingdom  in  the  two  little  plays  of  the  same 
year. 

With  The  Sightless  we  get  a  fuller  glimpse  of  the 
genius  which  was  destined  to  create  that  perfect 
tragedy,  The  Death  of  Tintagiles :  the  Maeterlinck 
who  created  something  like  a  clairvoyante  drama,  a 
drama  of  the  spirit,  revealing  material  things  in 
essence,  ghostly  little  bodies  consumed  by  ardent 
souls  which  he  visualises  for  his  readers  or  audiences, 
men  as  marionettes  swung  and  jerked  by  Destiny. 
Such  were  the  themes  and  aspects  of  the  cycle  of 
plays  which  now  came  in  steady  succession  :  The 
Seven  Princesses,  in  1891 ;  Pelleas  and  Melisanda,  in 
1892 ;  Alladine  and  Palomides,  Interior,  and  The 
Death  of  Tintagiles,  in  1894 ;  and  Aglavaine  and 
Selysette,  in  1896. 

Then  came  a  change  :  it  had  been  perceptible  even 
in  the  last-named  play,  where  a  tendency  to  dis- 
cursiveness seems  to  replace  the  intuitive  directness 
of  the  earlier  plays.  Maeterlinck  reaches  the  summit 
of  the  art  which  is  peculiarly  his  own  in  The  Death 
of  Tintagiles ;  its  wizardry  still,  however,  dominates 
Aglavaine  and  Selysette,  and  it  even  casts  a  glamour 
at  times  over  Sister  Beatrice  and  Ariane  and  Barbe 
Bleue,   which    appeared    in   1901.     But    somewhere 

x3* 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

between  1896  and  1901  Maeterlinck  the  dramatist 
of  mysticism  died,  and  with  the  issue  of  Monna 
Vanna,  in  1902,  a  new  cycle  begins ;  he  is  still 
engaged  with  the  mystery  of  life,  but  from  the  point 
of  view  of  the  psychologist  rather  than  that  of  the 
mystic.  And  in  the  successors  to  Monna  Vanna, 
Joyzelle  (1903),  and  The  Blue  Bird  (1908),  he  has  not 
returned  to  his  original  attitude. 

During  the  time  of  this  dramatic  production  he 
has  been  expounding  his  ideas  and  his  drama  by 
means  of  essays,  and  the  change  which  I  have  noted, 
though  less  definite,  is  to  be  seen  here  also.  The  first 
essay  volume,  "  The  Treasure  of  the  Humble " 
(1897),  is  an  exposition  of  the  attitude  which  pro- 
duced the  marionette  plays,  it  is  a  book  full  of  mystic 
suggestion  and  hope,  it  reads  at  times  like  a  scripture 
foretelling  immediate  revelation.  With  his  next 
book,  "  Wisdom  and  Destiny  "  (1898),  he  attempts 
to  formulate  his  ideas  into  a  working  philosophy, 
and  he  is  gradually  drawn  away  from  mysticism  with 
its  introspection,  to  a  more  objective  moral  psycho- 
logy, which  in  succeeding  volumes — "  The  Life  of 
the  Bee"  (1901),  "The  Buried  Temple"  (1902), 
"The  Double  Garden"  (1904),  and  "The  Intelli- 
gence of  Flowers  "  (1906) — becomes  almost  entirely 
absorbed  in  an  outward  view  of  life,  a  kind  of  tran- 
scendental rationalism. 


132 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 


II 

With  the  deepening  of  the  personal  note,  which  is 
one  of  the  marked  features  of  modern  art,  the  ideas 
of  the  artist  become  more  intimately  associated  with 
his  art,  and  it  becomes  less  and  less  advisable  to 
attempt  their  segregation.  This  is  quite  obvious 
in  the  work  of  Maeterlinck.  His  plays  have,  of 
course,  a  marked  glamour  of  their  own  apart  from 
any  ideas  which  may  be  held  by  their  author  ;  just 
as  much  as  his  essays,  which  possess  independent 
literary  charms  of  form,  delicacy  of  expression  and 
vocabulary.  But,  even  were  it  possible,  it  would 
be  as  wholly  undesirable  to  accept  the  mere  charm 
of  the  essays  and  neglect  their  ideas,  as  it  would  be 
to  attempt  to  enjoy  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the 
early  plays  wthout  realisation  of  their  deeper 
meaning. 

Maeterlinck,  like  Ibsen  and  Bernard  Shaw,  is  a 
type  of  the  artist-philosopher.  He  is  a  man  with  a 
message.  He  does  not  trust,  however,  to  the  action 
and  symbolism  of  his  drama  revealing  the  whole  of 
his  ideas,  as  Ibsen  did,  but  like  Bernard  Shaw,  he 
expounds  his  aims  in  his  essays. 

But  as  a  philosopher  he  is  not  strikingly  original, 
except  in  the  sense  that  originality  and  sincerity  are 
accounted  one.  He  has  added  little  of  note  to  our 
stock  of  ideas,  but  drawing  as  he  has  done  largely  on 
the  wells  of  the  older  mystics  and  some  modern  sages. 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

he  has  distilled  their  thoughts  in  the  alembic  of  his 
own  temperament  and  applied  the  result  to  life  in 
his  own  way.  His  accomplishment  amounts  to  a 
more  intimate  revelation  of  the  spirit  of  man  and, 
in  his  essays,  of  animals  and  flowers.  In  no  other 
plays  do  you  feel  so  close  to  the  spiritual  essence  of 
life  as  in  the  early  plays  of  Maeterlinck;  so  acutely 
does  he  manifest  the  reality  of  the  soul  that  you  feel 
at  times  that  he  alone  among  artists  has  come 
closest  to  the  unseen  and  the  unknown.  The  human 
soul  moves  through  these  plays  like  an  actual 
presence ;  tragic  and  tormented  it  is,  to  be  sure,  but 
it  is  a  vivid  reality,  more  real  indeed  than  the  ghostly 
bodies  of  his  characters,  which  fade  before  the  fervour 
of  their  awakened  inner  consciousnesses.  You  feel 
yourself  instinctively  pitying  their  pains  ;  not  the 
pains  of  the  flesh,  but,  for  the  first  time  in  a  theatre, 
the  pains  of  the  spirit,  and  this  again,  as  distinct  from 
emotional  pain.  The  creation  of  such  an  attitude 
is  Maeterlinck's  original  contribution  to  art. 

All  mystics  have  been  conscious  of  the  soul,  but 
none  in  quite  the  same  way  as  Maeterlinck.  They 
have  generally  looked  upon  it  as  a  religious  counter 
with  a  purely  formal  destiny ;  he  looks  upon  it  with 
the  eye  of  the  naturalist.  Where  the  older  mystics 
are  theological  Maeterlinck  is  secular.  Consciously 
or  not  he  has  attempted  the  secularisation  of  mysti- 
cism, but  under  his  touch  it  is  none  the  less  religious 
in  the  deeper  sense.  Everything  for  him  has 
spiritual  significance,  yet  never  for  a  moment  does 

i34 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

he  pretend  to  revealed  or  superhuman  knowledge : 
he  is  untiring  in  his  watchfulness,  but  brings  no  news 
of  final  certainty ;  and  although  he  is  sensibly 
credulous,  "  I  know  not  "  is  ever  on  his  lips,  punctuat- 
ing his  aspiration  with  something  like  pathos.  Still, 
he  is  never  without  hope,  something  may  happen 
at  any  moment.  Humanity  after  passing  through 
many  vicissitudes  stands  on  the  threshold  of  wisdom. 

At  the  same  time  Maeterlinck  anticipates  no  sudden 
change  ;  catastrophic  revivalism  has  no  place  in  his 
outlook  ;  his  awakening  is  progressive,  a  gradual  un- 
rolling, as  it  were,  of  the  inner  vision.  He  sees  this 
awakening  in  many  directions  :  in  the  discoveries  of 
science  ;  the  growth  of  psychological  knowledge  ;  the 
spread  of  humanism  ;  the  desire  for  fellowship  among 
men  and  nations  ;  and  the  higher  regard  we  pay  to 
women  who  have,  he  is  convinced,  guarded  through 
the  ages  a  fuller  sense  of  the  mystic  value  of  life. 

Into  this  spiritual  sensitiveness  he  weaves  his  idea 
of  Destiny — the  unknown  determining  force  of  life. 
But  he  gives  no  detailed  scheme  of  predestination 
except  in  the  simple  symbolism  of  The  Blue  Bird. 
Destiny,  for  Maeterlinck,  is  immanent  and  closely 
related  to  the  will  and  personal  power.  Our  Des- 
tinies are  to  be  guided  and  controlled  by  wisdom, 
which  is  love,  and  truth,  and  justice.  He  is  pro- 
gressive both  as  a  fatalist  and  as  a  mystic  ;  Destiny 
is,  he  believes,  constantly  being  conquered  by 
individuality,  by  science,  by  invention,  and  by  every 
addition  to  human  power. 

i35 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

Such  is  the  philosophy  behind  his  drama.  It  domi- 
nates those  early  plays  which  flutter  in  a  wizard 
twilight  on  the  very  frontiers  of  consciousness,  just 
as  much  as  the  later  plays.  But  it  is  the  early  plays 
which,  as  I  have  said,  stand  alone.  They  have  the 
quality  of  uniqueness  and,  in  "  The  Treasure  of  the 
Humble,"  Maeterlinck  has  shown  that  they  have  a 
philosophy  and  an  aesthetic  which  is  peculiar  to  them. 
Like  Ibsen's  plays,  they  have  a  simple  and  realistic 
movement  and  the  inevitability  of  all  great  drama, 
but  the  contest,  despite  the  violence  in  which  it 
usually  culminates,  is  largely  static.  Material  action 
is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  but  it  is  not  substituted  by 
discussion  as  in  the  later  plays  of  Shaw  and  Granville 
Barker,  it  is  replaced  by  abrupt  self-revealing 
dialogue  and  long  silences.  Silence  is  the  chorus  of 
the  Maeterlinckian  drama. 

The  tragedy  in  these  plays  is  the  outcome  of  con- 
test with  the  unknown  and  the  foreordained.  But  it 
is  almost  tragedy  and  life  in  the  abstract.  His 
people  are  like  children  in  peril,  symbols  of  man 
battling  against  nature.  You  do  not  see  the  photo- 
graphic realism  of  Ibsen,  but  a  clairvoyante  realism  ; 
you  become  an  initiate  whilst  reading  Maeterlinck's 
early  plays,  and  see  what  is  ordinarily  unperceived ; 
indeed  ordinary  sight  is  almost  unnecessary  for  these 
plays.  Walter  Pater  has  said  that  "  All  art  con- 
stantly aspires  to  the  condition  of  music,"  and  in 
Maeterlinck's  plays  for  marionettes  you  see  this 
aspiration  at  the  very  parting  of  the  ways.     The 

136 


MAURICE   MAETERLINCK 

dramatist  himself,  however,  as  M.  Gerard  Harry  has 
pointed  out  in  his  admirable  essay  just  issued  by 
Messrs  George  Allen,  is  practically  deaf  to  music, 
especially  opera,  so  it  cannot  be  assumed  that  he 
has  left  the  static  drama  for  the  drama  of  action 
deliberately  because  he  felt  he  had  pushed  his  art  as 
far  in  the  direction  of  music  as  it  would  go.  But  he 
may  have  felt  unconsciously  that  any  further  de- 
velopment along  those  lines  must  be  continued  by 
musicians  like  Claude  Debussy,  whose  operatic  treat- 
ment of  Pelleas  and  Melisanda  does  actually  carry 
the  theme  into  deeper  realms  of  consciousness.  But 
whatever  may  have  been  his  motive,  he  no  longer 
reveals  upon  his  stage  man  as  an  anxious  marionette 
whipped  and  scourged  by  Destiny. 

His  later  plays  are  purely  romantic  ;  clairvoyance 
has  entirely  disappeared,  and  in  its  stead  we  have 
passion  and  will  stalking  across  the  stage  after  the 
old  dramatic  method,  dependent  upon  plot  and 
costume  and  scenery,  as  bravely  as  in  any  of  the 
masterpieces  of  stage-craft  which  we  associate  with 
the  art  of  Victorien  Sardou.  There  is  one  exception, 
however,  to  this  rule,  and  that  is  in  his  latest  play, 
The  Blue  Bird,  which  synthesises  the  Maeterlinckian 
idea  of  Destiny  in  a  kindergarten  fairy  play  of 
intense  charm. 

But  the  poet  in  Maeterlinck,  it  would  seem,  is 
destined  to  give  place  to  the  humanist  and  psycho- 
logist. There  were  always  two  sides  to  his  genius, 
even  in  the  early  days  :    the  introspective  and  the 

i37 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

objective.  The  latter  has  prevailed,  and  Maeter- 
linck, apart  from  his  drama,  has  become  a  new  type  of 
scientist ;  his  essays  reveal  something  like  a  marriage 
between  science  and  poetry.  "  The  Life  of  the  Bee  " 
is  perhaps  the  best  example  of  the  work  of  the  new 
Maeterlinck,  for  in  it  he  has  given  us,  not  only  excel- 
lent natural  history,  but  social  philosophy  and 
mysticism  as  well,  wrapped  in  a  prose  which  alone 
would  have  made  his  reputation  as  a  writer.  And  if 
his  dramatic  genius  no  longer  dives  for  pearls  in  the 
perilous  deep,  but  is  content  to  investigate  the 
surface  of  the  waters  of  life,  we  may  be  sure  that 
whatever  he  does  will  have  the  quality  of  great  art, 
and  that  he  has  not  ceased  beating  at  the  doors  of 
mystery. 

1910 


138 


G.    K.   CHESTERTON 


IT  is  generally  agreed  that  there  is  an  intimate 
relationship  between  happiness  and  the  circum- 
ference of  a  man's  waist.  But  if  there  were  any 
doubt  about  it  this  could  easily  be  settled  by  refer- 
ence to  the  massive  proportions  of  Gilbert  Chester- 
ton. He  strikes  one  as  being  the  happiest  and 
heaviest  of  men.  There  is  something  altogether 
prodigious  in  his  hilarity,  his  genius,  and  lus  person. 
One  feels  impelled  to  speak  of  him  in  superlatives. 
He  looms  upon  the  vision,  just  as  he  bestrides  modern 
journalism,  like  a  Colossus.  You  cannot  get  away 
from  him,  even  if  you  desired  to  do  so,  which  is 
inconceivable.  You  may  not  be  able  to  see  eye-to- 
eye  with  him,  but  there  is  a  fascination  in  his  point 
of  view.  His  genius  is  interesting,  suggestive,  pro- 
vocative, and  never  dull. 

He  plays  with  ideas  just  as  Cinquevalli  plays  with 
billiard  balls.  And  his  skill  is  just  as  irresistible. 
At  the  same  time,  his  skill  in  making  sentences  and 
ideas  fly  through  the  intellectual  air  like  the  inspired 
billiard  balls  of  the  famous  juggler  is  not  a  complete 
thing  in  itself,  delightful  as  it  is.     When  G.  K.  C. 

i39 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

balances  two  or  more  ideas  on  the  end  of  his  intellect, 
if  I  may  be  permitted  the  image,  he  does  not  perform 
this  interesting  feat  for  the  sake  of  the  mere  skill  of 
the  thing,  delighted  as  he  undoubtedly  is  with  that 
part  of  the  performance.  He  juggles  with  ideas  to 
show  his  readers  not  how  clever  he  is,  but  how  wise 
he  is.  He,  in  fact,  has  something  to  teach ;  he  is  a 
missioner,  and  his  method  of  conveying  his  gospel  of 
glad  tidings  to  men  is  by  a  process  of  mental  equili- 
brium in  cap  and  bells. 

At  one  time  I  doubted  in  the  existence  of  G.  K.  C. 
I  listened  to  the  stories  of  him  as  one  listens  to  the 
yarns  of  men  who  have  been  in  the  ends  of  the  earth. 
And  even  now,  after  I  have  looked  upon  him  with 
my  own  eyes,  I  have  to  nudge  myself  to  realise  his 
probability.  He  has  the  reality  of  one  of  those 
dragons  or  fairies  in  which  he  has  such  invincible 
faith.  I  first  beheld  him  on  a  Yorkshire  moor  far 
from  his  natural  element,  which  is  London.  He 
was  in  the  locality  on  a  holiday,  and  I  had  gone  over 
to  verify  his  existence  just  as  one  might  go  to  the 
Arctic  regions  to  verify  the  existence  of  the  North 
Pole  or  the  North- West  Passage. 

He  was  staying  at  the  house  of  a  Bradford  merchant 
adjoining  the  moor,  and  I  was  to  meet  him  there.  It 
was  April,  and  raining.  I  trudged  through  the  damp 
furze  and  heather  up  to  the  house  only  to  find  that 
the  object  of  my  pilgrimage  had  disappeared  without 
leaving  a  trace  behind  him.  No  alarm  was  felt,  as 
this  was  one  of  his  habits.     Sometimes  he  would  go 

140 


G.    K.   CHESTERTON 

down  to  the  railway  station,  and,  taking  a  ticket  to 
any  place  that  had  a  name  which  appealed  to  him, 
vanish  into  the  unknown,  making  his  way  home  on 
foot  or  wheel  as  fancy  or  circumstance  directed. 
On  this  occasion,  however,  nothing  so  serious  had 
happened.  Therefore  I  adjourned  with  the  lady  of 
the  house  and  Mrs  Chesterton  to  an  upper  hall,  where 
a  noble  latticed  window  commanded  a  wide  vista 
of  the  moor.  I  peered  into  the  wild,  half  hoping 
that  I  should  first  behold  the  great  form  of  Gilbert 
Chesterton  looming  over  the  bare  brow  of  the  wold, 
silhouetted  against  the  grey  sky  like  the  symbol  of  a 
new  large  faith. 

You  see  my  imagination  was  somewhat  over- 
wrought, and  I  was  not  to  be  thus  gratified.  G.  K.  C. 
did  not  fill  the  high  horizon  of  the  far  wold,  he 
did  not  burst  upon  our  ken  like  a  titan  gradually 
growing  bigger  as  he  came  nearer  into  our  vision. 
His  coming  was  not  melodramatic;  it  was,  on  the 
contrary,  quite  simple,  quite  idyllic,  and  quite 
characteristic.  In  fact,  he  did  not  come  at  all, 
rather  was  it  that  our  eyes,  and  later  our  herald, 
went  to  him.  For  quite  near  to  the  house  we  espied 
him,  hatless  and  negligently  clad  in  a  Norfolk 
suit  of  homespun,  leaning  in  the  rain  against  a 
budding  tree,  absorbed  in  the  pages  of  a  little 
red  book. 

This  was  a  more  fitting  vision.  It  suited  admir- 
ably  his  unaffected,  careless,  and  altogether  childlike 
genius.     He  came  into  the  house  shortly  afterwards 

141 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

and  consumed  tea  and  cake  like  any  mortal  and  talked 
the  talk  of  Olympus  with  the  abandonment  and  irre- 
sistibility of  a  child.  I  found  his  largeness  wonder- 
fully proportionate,  even,  as  is  so  rarely  the  case  with 
massive  men,  to  his  head.  This  is  amply  in  keeping 
with  the  rest  of  his  person.  He  wears  a  tangled 
mass  of  light  brown  hair  prematurely  streaked 
with  grey,  and  a  slight  moustache.  His  grey-blue 
eyes  laugh  happily  as  his  full  lips  unload  themselves 
of  a  constant  flow  of  self-amused  and  piquant  words. 
Like  Dr  Johnson,  whom  he  resembles  so  much  in 
form,  he  is  a  great  talker.  But  while  I  looked  at  him 
I  was  not  reminded  of  the  lexicographer,  but  of 
Balzac.  And  as  his  monologue  rolled  on  and  we 
laughed  and  wondered,  I  found  myself  carried  away 
to  a  studio  in  France,  where  the  head  of  Chesterton 
became  one  with  the  head  of  Rodin's  conception  of 
France's  greatest  literary  genius. 

Since  then  I  have  seen  G.  K.  C.  many  times.  I 
have  seen  him  standing  upon  platforms  defending 
the  peoples'  pleasures  against  the  inroads  of  Puritan- 
ism. I  have  seen  him  addressing  men  from  a 
pulpit,  and  on  one  memorable  occasion  at  Clifford's 
Inn  Hall  I  saw  him  defending  the  probability  of  the 
liquefication  of  the  blood  of  St  Januarius  in  the 
teeth  of  a  pyrotechnic  heckling  from  Bernard  Shaw. 
Again  I  have  seen  his  vast  person  dominating  the 
staring  throng  in  Fleet  Street  like  a  superman  ; 
and  I  have  seen  the  traffic  of  Ludgate  Circus  held 
up  for  him,  as  he  strolled  by  in  cloak  and  sombrero 

142 


G.    K.   CHESTERTON 

like  a  brigand  of  Adelphi  drama  or  a  Spanish  hidalgo 
by  Velasquez,  oblivious  alike  of  critical  'bus-driver 
and  wonder-struck  multitude. 

But  best  is  it  to  see  him  in  his  favourite  habitat 
of  Bohemian  Soho.  There  in  certain  obscure  yet 
excellent  French  restaurants,  with  Hilaire  Belloc 
and  other  writers  and  talkers,  he  may  be  seen, 
sitting  behind  a  tall  tankard  of  lager  or  a  flagon  of 
Chianti,  eternally  unravelling  the  mysterious  tangle 
of  living  ideas  ;  now  rising  mountainously  on  his 
feet  to  overshadow  the  company  with  weighty 
argument,  anon  brandishing  a  wine-bottle  as  he 
insists  upon  defending  some  controversial  point 
until  '  we  break  the  furniture " ;  and  always 
chuckling  at  his  own  wit  and  the  sallies  of  others, 
as  he  fights  the  battle  of  ideas  with  indefatigable 
and  unconquerable  good-humour. 

II 

Gilbert  Keith  Chesterton  was  born  at  Camden 
Hill,  Kensington,  on  29th  May  1874.  His  parents 
are  English,  and  his  father  has  been  long  and  honour- 
ably associated  with  Kensington  as  an  estate  agent. 
On  his  mother's  side  he  inherits  foreign  blood, 
his  maternal  grandmother,  Marie  Louise  Grosjean, 
being  Swiss.  There  is  no  indication  that  his  literary 
talent  is  inherited,  and  the  only  instance  of  a  writer 
among  his  immediate  relatives  is  that  of  his  great- 
uncle,  Captain  Chesterton,  who  was  a  governor  of 

i43 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

Coldbath  Fields  Prison,  and  who  occasionally 
plied  his  pen  in  the  cause  of  prison  reform.  But 
he  is  not  the  sole  exponent  of  the  literary  art  in  the 
present  generation  of  the  Chestertons,  for  his  younger 
brother,  Cecil,  is  an  author  and  journalist  and  socialist 
propagandist  of  pronounced  individuality  and  ability. 

Gilbert  Chesterton  was  educated  at  St  Paul's 
School,  and  it  was  at  this  famous  scholastic  estab- 
lishment that  his  precocious  and  versatile  literary 
genius  first  made  itself  known.  Besides  taking  the 
Milton  Prize  for  poetry,  he  was  the  founder  and 
chief  combatant  of  a  particularly  lively  debating 
circle  called  the  Junior  Debating  Club,  and  his 
earliest  published  work  appears  in  the  pages  of  the 
society's  journal,  The  Debater.  There  were  twelve 
members  of  the  "  J.D.C.,"  as  the  club  was  familiarly 
termed,  and  each  one  of  them  seems  to  have  been 
more  or  less  inspired  by  the  optimism  of  their  leader 
Some  of  these  early  friends  of  the  "  J.D.C."  have 
already,  like  Messrs  E.  C.  Bentley,  Lucien  Older- 
shaw,  Laurence  Soloman,  and  Robert  Verneve, 
made  positions  for  themselves  in  journalism  and 
education ;  and  even  to-day  the  club  is  not  dead. 
For  the  original  twelve,  and  the  wives  of  those  who 
have  made  the  matrimonial  venture,  meet  at  an 
annual  dinner,  for  which  occasions  G.  K.  C.  draws 
weird  invitation  cards  with  an  appropriate  and 
humorous  picture  for  each  member. 

But  long  before  he  went  to    St   Paul's  School 
Gilbert   Chesterton  commenced  writing.     He  is  a 

144 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

young  man  now,  with  a  name  familiar  to  the  reading 
public  of  two  continents,  but  he  was  a  literary 
prodigy  and  the  marvel  of  his  parents  at  the  tender 
age  of  five.  He  wrote  romances  when  he  was  a  baby, 
and  he  has  been  following  the  vocation  of  a  lord  of 
language  ever  since. 

After  leaving  St  Paul's  he  went  for  a  term  or 
so   to   the   Slade  School,  where   he  received   some 
instruction  in  drawing,  but  fortunately  not  enough 
to   destroy  the   delicious   irresponsibility  and  indi- 
viduality  of    his    amazing    pencil.     The    drawings 
of  G.  K.  C.  are  as  distinct  and  remarkable  as  his 
literary  work,  and  he  turns  them  out  as  prodigally 
and  as  easily  as   he  writes.     They  are  a  kind  of 
laughing  and  grotesque  efflorescence  of  his  wonder- 
fully active  personality.     In  some  ways  they  recall 
the     nonsense     drawings     of     Edward    Lear,    and 
again  the  humorous   sketches  of  Sir  Frank  Lock- 
wood.     But  they  are  not  quite  the  same  in  spirit. 
They    are    more    barbarous     and    more    childish. 
They  are  the  hilarious  and  spontaneous  by-products 
of  a  genius  that  can  laugh  at  the  whole  world  and 
love  it  at  the  same  time.     They  are  an  eminently 
Gothic    product,    the    inevitable    grotesques    of    a 
cosmic  and  human  personality.     They  spring  natur- 
ally out  of  his  pencil  in  his  spare  time;  they  cover 
the  envelopes  and  scraps  of  paper  in  his  pockets ; 
and  while  he  is  talking  to  one  they  gradually  and 
unconsciously  appear  upon  whatever  smooth  surface 
lies  near  to  his  hand. 

K  145 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

After  leaving  the  Slade  School  he  went  into  the 
office  of  Mr  T.  Fisher  Unwin  with  the  intention  of 
learning  the  publishing  business,  and  it  was  during 
the  spare  hours  of  his  apprenticeship  to  that  amiable 
profession  that  he  discovered  his  literary  work  had 
a  market  value ;  or  rather  that  this  was  discovered 
for  him,  for  it  was  his  friend  Mr  Lucien  Oldershaw 
who  first  urged  him  to  send  articles  to  the  Press. 
His  earliest  contributions,  apart  from  his  work  for 
The  Debater,  appeared  in  The  Bookman  and  The 
Speaker.  He  was  "  discovered "  by  The  Daily 
News  in  1900,  and  he  has  contributed  a  weekly 
article  to  that  paper  ever  since,  and  on  the  death 
of  L.  F.  Austin  he  succeeded  to  the  weekly  control 
of  "The  Pocket  Book"  in  the  Illustrated  London  News. 

In  1900  he  published  his  first  book.  This  was  the 
unique  volume  of  poems  called  "  The  Wild  Knight." 
He  struck  a  new  note  in  poetry.  The  mock  humility 
of  the  minor  poet,  the  yearning,  "  the  light  loves,  and 
little  errors  "  of  so  much  modern  verse,  were  quite 
absent  from  his  song.  He  had  humility,  but  it  was 
a  strange,  proud  humility ;  he  was  romantic,  but  he 
did  not  yearn  ;  he  was  serious,  but  he  laughed  ; 
he  was  humble  before  the  world,  yet  insolent  as  a 
god.  After  this  came  "  The  Defendant,"  a  reprint  of 
his  contributions  to  The  Speaker.  Here  for  the 
first  time  the  public  were  introduced  to  Gilbert 
Chesterton's  brilliant  gift  of  dialectic  and  of  paradox. 
The  volume  is  a  series  of  triumphant  defences  of 
indefensible  subjects. 

146 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

It  was  after  the  publication  of  "  The  Wild  Knight " 
that  G.  K.  C.  received  the  greatest  compliment 
ever  paid  to  a  young  and  nearly  unknown  author. 
Viscount  Morley,  then  plain  John  Morley,  invited 
him  to  write  the  study  of  "  Browning "  for  the 
English  Men  of  Letters  Series,  a  series  of  books 
famous  wherever  the  English  language  is  spoken, 
not  one  of  which  had  hitherto  been  written  by  an 
author  who  was  not  at  the  time  weighed  down  with 
literary  and  academic  honours.  The  editor  of  the 
Men  of  Letters  Series  was  rewarded  for  his  courage 
and  insight  by  a  volume  of  analytical  and  inter- 
pretive criticism  equal  to  the  best  volumes  in  the 
series,  and  perhaps  the  finest  contribution  to  the 
literature  that  has  grown  about  the  genius  of  Robert 
Browning. 

Ill 

There  is  much  of  the  child  in  Gilbert  Chesterton. 
He  is  the  Peter  Pan  of  modern  philosophy  :  he  won't 
grow  up.  This  is  so  rare  a  thing  in  this  weary  and 
elderly  age  that  one  ought  to  be  very  thankful. 
Indeed,  on  the  first  appearance  of  any  signs  of 
G.  K.  C.  getting  out  of,  say,  his  teens,  I  would  gladly 
advocate  some  scheme  of  State  subsidy  that  would 
encourage  him  to  remain  a  child.  But  there  is  not 
much  need  for  fear  on  that  score.  His  youthfulness 
will  last  for  ever.  He  will  be  cutting  capers  on  the 
Patmos  of  his  own  imagination  when  we  are  weary 

147 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

even  of  our  small  sins  and  yearning  for  some  chance 
of  good  works  that  will  bring,  as  a  reward,  eternal 
peace. 

His  essays  teem  with  the  unexpectedness  of  the 
child.  You  are  never  certain  how  his  sentences 
will  end.  His  similes  are  the  familiar  similes  of 
babes  and  sucklings.  Into  some  high  discourse 
upon  will  and  destiny  he  will  drag  in  pigs  and 
cabbages  and  lamp-posts  with  fearful  and  wonderful 
appropriateness ;  as  though  the  deep,  mysterious 
wisdom  that  shines  through  the  frank  eyes  of  a  child 
had  become  articulate  and  found  expression  in  the 
first  homely  objects  of  self-consciousness :  the 
simple  things  of  everyday  life.  That,  indeed,  is  his 
attitude  towards  life.  He  sees  the  wonder,  mystery 
and  utility  of  common,  everyday  things,  just  as  a 
child  does,  and  he  is  not  afraid  of  proclaiming  his 
delight  to  the  whole  world.  "  There  is  only  one 
thing,"  he  says,  "  it  requires  real  courage  to  say,  and 
that  is  a  truism."  Gilbert  Chesterton's  mission  in 
life  is  to  revalue  the  truisms — the  beliefs  that  are 
so  commonly  accepted  as  to  be  almost  lifeless — and 
to  proclaim  them  still  and  for  ever  true. 

So  great  is  his  power  of  reasoning  that  you  feel 
he  could  prove  anything,  and  so  he  could.  But  he 
is  too  busy  proving  his  own  theories  and  enjoying 
them  to  waste  time  in  that  way.  He  is  not  deceived 
about  logic,  he  knows  logic  is  but  a  means  and  not 
an  end.  He  could  prove  that  black  is  white,  and 
probably  has  done  so  already.     And  he  may  or  may 

148 


G.   K.   CHESTERTON 

not  be  convinced  that  twice  two  are  not  four. 
Such  excursions,  however,  would  be  the  merest  in- 
cidentals of  his  game.  His  main  concern  is  to  save 
the  world  from  the  designs  of  modern  tendencies, 
in  the  first  place  because  they  are  tendencies,  and 
in  the  second  place  because  they  are  pessimistic. 
"  Seriousness  is  the  special  and  secret  seal  of  Satan," 
he  says. 

He  is  the  first  apostle  of  the  New  Romanticism. 
And  he  has  come  bounding  and  laughing  into  the 
camp  of  the  heretics  with  the  direct  intention  of 
hauling  down  their  flag.  He  advocates  mysticism 
against  materialism,  Christianity  against  Agnosti- 
cism. In  politics  he  is  a  Liberal.  He  loves  the 
common  people  and  common  things.  The  world 
for  him  is  a  great  paradox,  a  monstrous,  irrational 
thing  cloaking  mysteriously  the  sanity  of  God,  who 
reveals  Himself  to  those  who  can  face  great  odds  and 
laugh.  In  his  own  words,  he  has  heard  "  the 
call  of  that  buried  and  subconscious  happiness  which 
is  in  all  of  us,  and  which  may  emerge  suddenly  at 
the  sight  of  the  grass  of  a  meadow  or  the  spears 
of  the  enemy." 

IV 

His  personal  life  is  like  his  teaching.  He  fights 
for  his  cause  joyfully  with  the  weapon  he  knows 
best  how  to  use,  his  pen.  He  mixes  freely  with  the 
people   and   lectures   here,  there,  and   everywhere. 

i49 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

He  carries  on  the  propaganda  of  faith  and  happiness, 
by  being  happy  and  having  faith.  Careless  in  his 
dress  and  of  all  the  superfluous  details  of  life,  he 
is  yet  an  earnest  and  consciously  careful  writer, 
taking  endless  pains  in  the  final  quality  of  his  work, 
much  of  his  writing  for  book  form  being  diligently 
written  and  rewritten  until  his  severest  self-criticism 
is  satisfied. 

Yet  he  hardly  lives  the  life  of  the  methodical 
literary  man.  He  rarely  works  in  his  study,  most  of 
his  essays  being  written  at  odd  times  and  in  odd 
places,  in  restaurants,  clubs,  electric  cars,  and  tube 
railway  trains.  He  writes  rapidly,  and  is  surpris- 
ingly careless  of  his  manuscript.  Waiters  in  cafes 
and  clubs  are  continually  finding  sheets  of  valuable 
"  copy "  which  he  has  shed  during  his  sojourn 
in  such  places.  Method  is  apparently  not  a  feature 
of  the  dreamful  game  of  life  which  he  plays.  Yet  he 
gets  his  work  done.  He  seems  to  have  read  every- 
thing, and  has  a  memory  like  the  British  Museum 
Library.  But  nowadays  his  chief  reading  is  Dickens, 
Thackeray  and  Scott,  of  whom  he  never  tires,  and 
few  men  know  their  way  about  the  works  of  these 
masters  so  well. 

His  days  are  like  incidents  in  a  great  game.  The 
seriousness  of  life  he  leaves  to  take  care  of  itself; 
he  plays.  And  he  would  have  all  men  play  so 
happily  that  a  new  colour  should  come  into  their 
days,  finding  a  symbolism  in  their  brightly  coloured 
garments,  in  the  waving  of  flags,  and  the  singing 

*59 


G.    K.   CHESTERTON 

of  songs.  The  essence  of  life  is  the  sane  hilarity 
of  man  laughing  at  the  "  vast  stupidity  of  things.'* 
In  his  hilarious  way  he  is  serious  about  everything, 
but  about  one  thing  he  is  specially  serious  :  that 
thing  is  the  right  of  men  to  enjoy  life.  He  has  a 
toy  theatre,  of  which  he  is  not  only  sole  lessee  and 
proprietor,  but  scene-painter,  playwright,  general 
manager  and  manipulator  all  rolled  into  one.  His 
favourite  toy  play  is  St  George  and  the  Dragon. 
This  may  be  taken  as  a  symbol  of  his  life  and  his 
point  of  view.  The  play's  the  thing,  but  the  play  is 
the  eternal  play  of  the  triumph  of  light  over  dark- 
ness. Gilbert  Chesterton  plays  in  real  life  his  puppet 
play  of  St  George  and  the  Dragon.  He  goes  forth  to 
slay  the  dragon  of  despair  every  day.  That  is  his 
romance,  that  is  his  joy.  Even  if  the  end  of  the 
fight  is  but  the  beginning  of  the  fight  again,  his  faith 
for  ever  tells  him  that  the  New  Jerusalem  is  just 
round  the  next  corner,  and  that  all  comrades  in 
arms  shall  meet  ultimately  and  drink  "  from  the 
great  flagons  in  the  tavern  at  the  end  of  the  world." 

1908 


151 


H.   G.   WELLS 

(BEFORE    "TONO   BUNGAY  ") 


"  All  this  world  is  heavy  with  the  promise  of  greater  things, 
and  a  day  will  come — one  day  in  the  unending  succession  of 
days — when  beings,  beings  who  are  now  latent  in  our  thoughts 
and  hidden  in  our  loins,  will  stand  upon  this  earth  as  one  stands 
upon  a  footstool,  and  laugh  and  reach  out  their  hands  amidst 
the  stars."— H.  G.  Wells,  "The  Discovery  of  the  Future." 

THE  attitude  of  H.  G.  Wells  towards  social  life 
is,  fundamentally,  the  same  now  as  it  was  in 
1895  when  a  new  planet  swam  into  our  ken  in 
the  form  of  his  masterly  short  story,  "  The  Time 
Machine."  That  book  was  the  result  of  a  formula 
which  has  been  used  in  the  production  of  each  of  his 
succeeding  scientific  romances.  Wells  developed  early 
a  scientific  habit  of  mind ;  he  first  came  up  to  London 
as  a  student  at  the  Normal  School  of  Science,  where  his 
natural  scientific  tendency  was  drilled  and  systema- 
tised  with  the  intention  of  bringing  him  up  to  the 
accepted  standard  of  a  first-class  scientist. 

This,  as  we  know  to  our  advantage,  did  not  happen. 
Wells'  imagination  was  too  much  for  the  Normal 
School  of  Science ;   and  although  he  took  a  degree, 

152 


H.   G.   WELLS 

he  never  in  reality  became  a  scientist ;  he  became 
a  writer — an  artist.  But  he  never  lost  his  scientific 
habit  of  mind.  It  is  there  to  this  day,  as  those  who 
follow  his  tales  of  aerial  battle  and  magic  food-stuffs 
know  so  well.  But  added  to  this  scientific  sense 
there  is  that  other  sense — the  artist's  sense  of  vision. 
Wells,  instead  of  allowing  science  to  dominate  him, 
has  made  science  the  handmaiden  of  imagination. 
And  the  formula  at  the  back  of  his  scientific  romances 
is  a  combination  of  these  two  qualities.  He  gives 
his  theme  a  normal  scientific  basis,  then  extends 
it  into  the  realms  of  fancy. 

"  The  Time  Machine  "  is  a  good  example  of  this 
method.  In  this  tale  he  carefully  observes  the  facts 
of  our  social  conditions,  and  he  notices,  as  Karl 
Marx  before  him  noticed,  what  would  seem  to  be  the 
tendency  of  the  means  of  ease  and  luxury  to  fall  into 
the  hands  of  one  section  of  the  people,  whilst  the 
remaining  section  has  to  toil  and  struggle  for 
the  necessaries  of  life.  Karl  Marx,  in  his  role 
of  political  economist,  generalised  years  before  from 
these  facts,  that  society  must,  under  the  existing 
capitalist  system,  more  and  more  augment  this 
differentiation  of  classes,  with  the  result  that,  with 
the  growth  of  the  class  consciousness  of  the  toiling 
section,  a  state  of  war  would  come  about — the  Class 
War  which  would  end  in  the  workers  seizing  the 
means  of  wealth  and  administering  them  for  the 
welfare  of  all. 

Karl  Marx  was  as  imaginative  in  his  deductions 

i53 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

as  H.  G.  Wells;  the  only  difference  is  that  he  was 
neither  such  an  artist  nor  did  he  permit  his  imagina- 
tion to  go  so  far.  It  is  perhaps  impossible  to  say  at 
what  point  science  reaches  the  frontiers  of  the 
imaginative  realm.  One  thing  is  certain,  however, 
and  that  is,  the  scientist  cannot  wholly  do  without 
the  imaginative  faculty.  It  is  highly  probable,  if 
we  could  only  analyse  the  beginnings  of  scientific 
ideas,  that  the  great  discoveries  of  science — such  as 
the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  theory  of  evolution — 
were  in  the  earliest  stages  concepts  of  the  imagination. 

Wells  being  an  artist  then,  was  able  to  make  the 
necessary  scaffolding  for  his  dreams.  So,  starting 
where  Karl  Marx  did,  he  gradually  increases  the 
gap  between  the  two  hypothetical  classes,  ignoring 
the  revolutionary  possibilities  of  a  class  war,  which 
the  mere  scientist  could  not  afford  to  do,  until  in 
the  illimitable  future  he  gives  us  an  amazing  picture 
of  a  class  segregation  so  complete  as  to  have  produced 
two  distinct  races  :  the  one  dainty  and  delicate, 
living  playfully  for  ease  and  love,  without  labour  and 
without  care  save  fear  of  the  other  class ;  the  other 
brutalised  by  long  centuries  of  degrading  toil,  and 
living  in  an  underground  world  of  dim  passages 
and  the  clangour  of  machines.  They  have  large 
luminous  eyes  which,  cat-like,  probe  the  dark,  and 
at  night  time  they  come  to  the  surface  of  the  earth 
and  prey  horribly  upon  the  dainty  upper  classes. 

This  era  in  the  earth's  history  is  reached  by  an 
ingenious  person  who  has  pondered  much  upon  ideas 

i54     ■ 


H.    G.   WELLS 

of  dimension,  and,  ultimately  concluding  that  the 
fourth  dimension  is  in  time,  constructs  a  time  machine 
and  rides  into  futurity.  The  journey  into  the 
future  is  described  with  an  imaginative  power 
unsurpassed  in  any  of  Wells'  later  works,  and  it  is 
an  excellent  example  of  his  method  of  building  an 
imaginative  structure  upon  a  scientific  basis.  He 
speaks  of  the  peculiar  sensation  of  time-travelling, 
of  how,  by  pulling  a  lever,  the  traveller  sees  night 
following  day  "  like  the  flapping  of  a  black  wing  " 
and  the  "  sun  hopping  across  the  sky  "  every  minute, 
and  every  minute  marking  a  day. 

"  Then  in  the  intermittent  darkness,  I  saw  the 
moon  spinning  swiftly  through  her  quarters  from 
new  to  full,  and  had  a  faint  glimpse  of  the  circling 
stars.  Presently,  as  I  went  on,  still  gaining  velocity, 
the  palpitation  of  night  and  day  merged  into  con- 
tinuous greyness ;  the  sky  took  on  a  wonderful  deep- 
ness of  blue,  a  splendid  luminous  colour  like  that 
of  twilight ;  the  jerking  sun  became  a  streak  of  fire, 
a  brilliant  arch  in  space  ;  the  moon,  a  fainter  fluctuat- 
ing band  ;  and  I  could  see  nothing  of  the  stars,  save 
now  and  then  a  bright  circle  flickering  in  the  blue. 

"  The  landscape  was  misty  and  vague.  I  saw 
trees  growing  and  changing  like  puffs  of  vapour : 
now  brown,  now  green ;  they  grew,  spread,  shivered, 
and  passed  away.  I  saw  huge  buildings  rise  up 
faint  and  fair,  and  pass  like  dreams.  The  whole 
surface    of    the    earth    seemed    changed — melting 

i55 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

and  flowing  under  my  eyes.  .  .  .  Presently  I  noted 
that  the  sunbelt  swayed  up  and  down,  from  solstice 
to  solstice,  in  a  minute  or  less,  and  that,  consequently, 
my  pace  was  over  a  year  a  minute ;  and  minute  by 
minute  the  white  snow  flashed  across  the  world, 
and  vanished,  and  was  followed  by  the  bright,  brief 
green  of  spring." 

And  so  on,  the  story  culminating  in  that  dim 
future,  eight  hundred  thousand  years  hence,  past 
the  age  of  the  cannibals,  when  the  heat  of  the  sun  has 
failed,  and  the  weary  earth  is  a  desert  of  ice  in  a 
twilight  world,  whose  sole  inhabitant  is  a  huge 
crab-like  creature  with  monstrous  tentacles — the 
Caliban  of  a  sun-forgotten  waste. 

This  process  of  constructing  new  worlds  upon 
a  basis  of  fact,  of  taking  a  plain  fact  and  making  it 
grow  into  whatever  wonder  the  fancy  may  conceive, 
is  behind  all  of  the  scientific  romances  of  Wells. 
In  "The  Food  of  the  Gods  "  he  is  perhaps  less  scien- 
tific and  less  plausible  ;  this  is  worth  noting,  because 
it  is  not  so  much  the  imaginative  side  of  his  stories 
that  is  convincing,  but  the  fact  that  the  imaginative 
structure  is  built  upon  a  foundation  of  science. 
But  the  other  stories  are  more  convincing  than  fact ; 
stranger,  yet  more  plausible  than  truth.  It  is 
always  possible  for  the  events  in  these  tales  to  happen 
because  the  writer  is  so  scrupulous  about  his  first 
hypotheses.  But  he  does  not  give  them  to  you  as 
hypotheses,    but   as   facts.     The   consummate   art, 

156 


H.   G.   WELLS 

the  artfulness  with  which  he  plays  the  confidence 
trick  upon  his  readers  at  the  point  where  he  takes 
them  over  the  quicksands  that  lie  between  fact  and 
fancy,  amounts  to  genius. 

One  remembers  in  this  instance  the  clever  way 
in  which  he  disposes  of  his  Martians  in  "  The  War 
of  the  Worlds,"  after  they  have  wreaked  as  much 
ruin  as  the  story  can  stand.  He  plays  upon 
the  scientific  idea  of  survival  by  resistance.  The 
Martians  come  from  a  planet  which  has  no  disease 
germs,  consequently  the  uncanny  planetary  visitors, 
never  having  had  to  resist  disease,  are  an  easy  prey 
to  the  energetic  bacilli  of  Mother  Earth.  And  after 
all  our  means  of  defence  against  them  have  done  their 
best  and  failed,  our  ancient  enemy,  Disease,  becomes 
our  ally  for  once  and  brings  about  the  destruction  our 
science  of  war  failed  to  accomplish.  Similarly,  in  the 
same  book,  Mr  Wells  disposes  of  that  other  visitant 
from  Mars,  the  Red  Weed.  This  plant,  coming 
from  the  dry  atmosphere  of  that  planet,  indulges 
in  an  orgy  of  growth  in  our  humid  climate.  It 
dams  the  Thames  and  causes  devastating  floods  in 
the  adjoining  valleys,  it  creeps  over  buildings,  com- 
pletely shrouding  them  in  its  red  leaves  until  its  ab- 
normal powers  of  growth  finally  act  as  a  check  and  it 
ultimately  dies  of  its  own  excess — of  over-population. 

Once  having  done  this  successfully  a  novelist  can 
do  what  he  likes  with  his  imagination,  so  long  as  he 
keeps  his  details  in  structural  accord  with  his  original 
facts.    Wells  seems  to  have  been  born  with  this 

iS7 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

gift.  He  did  not  grow  into  it.  It  is  an  accomplish- 
ment in  "  The  Time  Machine."  It  is  quite  convincing 
in  "  The  Island  of  Dr  Moreau  "  and  "  The  War  of  the 
Worlds,"  in  "  The  First  Men  in  the  Moon,"  "  The  In- 
visible Man,"  and  "When  the  Sleeper  Wakes,"  not 
to  mention  the  thrilling  matter-of-factness  of  many 
of  the  short  stories,  several  of  which  are  equal  to 
anything  he  has  done,  and  one  or  two  ranking  with 
the  best  short  stories  in  the  language. 

It  is  the  convincing  quality  of  these  stories  which 
is  mainly  responsible  for  their  place  on  the  plane 
of  adult  fiction.  Jules  Verne  dealt  with  similar 
themes,  but  he  never,  in  England  at  least,  succeeded 
in  winning  the  attention  of  any  but  schoolboys.  It  is 
doubtful  if  Wells  is  read  at  all  by  youths  ;  he  is  the 
Jules  Verne  of  grown-ups.  One  reason  for  this  is  that 
he  is  more  convincing,  the  other  that  he  is  more  of  a 
philosopher.  Jules  Verne  was  interested  in  the  prob- 
lem of  things,  H.  G.  Wells  is  interested  in  the  problem 
of  man.  To  Jules  Verne  men  were  pawns ;  they  were 
almost  unnecessary :  to  Wells  they  are  the  most  im- 
portant pieces  in  the  game,  and  in  spite  of  his  air- 
ships and  his  handling-machines,  his  main  concern 
is  for  the  effect  of  his  super-scientific  changes  upon 
the  ways  of  men. 

II 

The  senses  of  fact  and  fancy  are  constantly  active 
in  the  art  of  Wells,  and  very  often  in  open  conflict. 

158 


H.   G.   WELLS 

But  in  spite  of  his  overweening  sense  of  fact,  which 
ever  impels  him  towards  something  like  an  apotheosis 
of  science,  he  is  fundamentally  a  story-teller.  The 
love  of  tales  for  their  own  sake  is  deeply  embedded 
in  his  nature.  The  world  for  him  is  a  story  book, 
and  all  the  men  and  women  merely  fairy  tales. 
He  resembles  Robert  Louis  Stevenson  in  this 
respect.  And  like  the  author  of  "  Treasure  Island  " 
he  is  a  careful,  almost  a  punctilious  stylist. 
He  is  a  mighty  hunter  of  phrases,  and  would 
lay  the  dictionary  waste  in  his  hunt  for  unique 
words. 

His  sentences  are  like  finely-clad  persons  who 
peacock  themselves  upon  their  appearance.  They 
strut.  They  also  possess  little  mannerisms,  curious 
little  turns,  of  which  they  are  apt  to  boast.  They 
belong  to  the  realm  of  conscious  art  and  practically 
remind  one  of  the  skill  and  care  which  has  made  them 
what  they  are.  They  are  dandified  sentences  wear- 
ing their  conceits  like  epaulettes  or  feathers.  One 
could  imagine  Mr  Wells  stepping  back  from  one  of 
his  highly  finished  periods,  as  Whistler  was  wont  to 
do  before  his  canvases,  and  saying,  "  Amazing  !  " 

His  method  of  telling  a  story  is  ingratiating.  He 
does  not  spring  it  upon  you  suddenly,  but  leads  you 
up  to  it  by  easy  stages,  gradually  raising  the  slides, 
like  an  operator  of  a  magic  lantern,  until  the  full 
theme  is  revealed.  At  other  times  he  is  like  a  genial 
lecturer  who,  although  not  quite  certain  of  his 
audience's  intelligence,  gives  it  the  credit  of  possess- 

i59 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

ing  imagination.  "  You  must  figure  to  yourselves," 
he  has  a  habit  of  saying,  and  then  comes  one  of  his 
immaculate  descriptions  in  all  the  pride  of  its  polished 
phraseology,  until  a  point  is  reached  when  it  would 
seem  words  were  inadequate,  and  a  row  of  dots 
appears  along  which  the  reader's  imagination  can 
disport  itself.  .  .  . 

The  effect  of  this  manner  is  to  create  in  one's 
mind  an  idea  of  exactitude,  a  particular  care  as  to 
detail,  a  refining  "  process,"  to  use  one  of  his  pet 
words,  which  in  the  end  becomes  almost  a  primness. 
Wells  is  never  vulgar,  he  has  a  disconcerting  horror 
of  vulgarity.  This  expresses  itself  in  his  prose,  in 
that  conscious  pride  of  which  I  have  spoken  ;  but  it 
also  leads  to  the  elimination  of  everything  in  his 
writings  in  the  nature  of  superfluous  ornament  or 
flourish.  His  style,  though  dandified,  is  not  loud, 
it  never  raises  its  voice,  its  purple  patches  are  sub- 
dued, they  are  mauve  and  dove-grey,  it  is  the  Beau 
Brummell  of  prose. 

Wells'  self-consciousness  always  turns  his  novels 
into  criticisms  of  conduct.  His  shorter  stories  are 
more  in  the  nature  of  stories  for  the  story's  sake.  As 
a  novelist  his  outlook  upon  life  reminds  one  of  Charles 
Dickens,  but  his  range  is  narrower.  He  has  at  least 
one  advantage  over  Dickens  :  he  never  attempts 
what  he  cannot  do.  He  is  too  conscious  an  artist 
for  that.  He  is  an  example  of  the  dictum  that  true 
genius  reveals  itself  by  working  within  limits.  Wells, 
like  Dickens,  knows  those  social  drudges,  the  lower  - 

1 60 


H.   G.   WELLS 

middle  class,  the  small  traders  and  their  dependants , 
but,  unlike  Dickens,  he  gives  one  the  impression  of 
being  ashamed  of  them. 

He  has  a  nice  faculty  for  laying  bare  their  little 
foibles,  their  pitiful  vanities,  and  small  ambitions. 
"  Love  and  Mr  Lewisham,"  "  The  Wheels  of  Chance," 
and  "  Kipps,"  his  three  novels  proper,  are  full  of  a 
keen  insight  into  such  things.  But  under  all  his 
satire,  there  is  genuine  concern  for  the  finer  qualities 
of  his  people.  One  laughs  at  the  amiable  vanities 
of  Hoopdriver  and  Kipps,  but  all  the  time  one  is 
forced  to  feel  that  they  are  very  nearly  related  to 
one's  own  precious  weaknesses.  But  Wells  reserves 
his  deepest  pity  for  the  domestic  "  slavey,"  and  her 
big  sister,  the  most  tragical  figure  in  our  civilisa- 
tion, the  mother-drudge  :  the  careworn  woman  who 
spends  her  life  grubbing  about  an  impoverished 
home  in  a  mean  street,  with  uncertain  health,  un- 
certain pay,  and  no  future. 

In  such  books  he  is  following  his  true  vocation 
as  artist.  As  the  student,  critic,  and  interpreter  of 
certain  phases  of  lower-middle  class  life,  he  is 
supreme  among  modern  writers,  so  supreme  that 
one  begrudges  every  deviation  on  his  part  from 
this  work.  Yet  here  we  come  in  contact  with 
the  complex  nature  of  his  genius.  Wells  is  not 
finally  an  artist,  he  is  a  man  with  a  mission.  He 
is  a  lover  of  order.  His  hatred  of  vulgarity 
reaches  out  to  a  hatred  of  the  vulgarity  of  un- 
seemly social  conditions,  of  the  vulgar  display  of 
l  161 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

idle    riches    no    less    than    vulgar    acceptance    of 
laborious  poverty. 

Each  succeeding  scientific  romance  and  novel 
betrays  his  growing  irritation  with  such  things. 
He  was  always  conscious  of  them,  but  in  his  earlier 
books  he  was  conscious  of  them  largely  from  the 
spectacular  point  of  view.  Later  he  came  to  think 
out  ways  of  giving  our  social  chaos  the  magic  yet 
practical  touch  that  would  create  order.  At  first  he 
experimented  with  the  almost  immediately  practical 
issues  which  might  reasonably  be  expected  to  follow 
modern  inventions  in  locomotion  and  similar  things, 
and  he  published  his  conclusions  in  that  suggestive 
volume,  "Anticipations."  Since  then  the  growth  of 
his  ideas  from  separate  and  individual  schemes  to 
complete  social  organisms  has  made  of  him  the  first 
of  living  Utopists. 

Ill 

Somewhere  between  the  issues  of  "  Anticipa- 
tions "  and  "  Mankind  in  the  Making,"  Wells  be- 
came a  Socialist.  In  1903  he  avowed  his  new  faith 
by  joining  the  Fabian  Society.  All  the  distributed 
satire,  invective  and  social  criticism  of  his  novels 
were  concentrated  in  the  practical  endeavour  to 
reorganise  society  on  a  newer  and  less  wasteful 
foundation.  And  quite  naturally  he  arrives  at  this 
conclusion  by  the  pressure  upon  his  imagination  of 
the  numerous  depressing  incidents  of  our  poverty- 

162 


H.    G.   WELLS 

ridden  age.  Nowhere  does  he  state  his  case,  and 
incidentally  the  working  of  the  scientific  imagination, 
better  than  in  the  essay  called  "  This  Misery  of 
Boots,"  contributed  first  to  The  Independent  Review 
in  1905,  and  afterwards  reprinted  by  the  Fabian 
Society  as  a  tract. 

Socialism  was  inevitable  to  a  man  of  Wells'  tem- 
perament. You  can  feel  it  tugging  at  his  coat-tails 
in  most  of  his  books.  His  earlier  studies  in  experi- 
mental sociology  were  not  avowedly  socialistic,  but 
throughout  "  Anticipations  "  and  "  Mankind  in  the 
Making  "  the  demands  made  upon  the  State  and  the 
social  consciousness  of  the  people  were  so  great  as 
inevitably  to  impel  him  into  collectivism,  if  not  into 
the  larger  freedom  of  Socialism.  The  New  Repub- 
licanism of  "  Mankind  in  the  Making,"  although  in 
the  first  instance  based  upon  the  will  of  a  finer  social 
type,  whose  life  shall  be  saturated  with  conscience 
and  discipline,  and  who  shall  be  ruled  by  duties  and 
"  a  certain  ritual,"  looks  to  the  increase  of  this  type 
until  ultimately  it  shall  embrace  the  whole  State. 
The  volume  is  an  essay  on  the  cultivation  of  social 
psychology. 

The  final  position  of  this  phase  of  Wells'  growth 
towards  Socialism  is  recorded  in  "  A  Modern  Utopia," 
which  is  a  picture  of  the  ideas  in  the  two  previous 
volumes  as  a  going  concern.  He  has  adopted  the 
imaginative  method  of  his  scientific  romances,  and 
extended  the  theories  and  tendencies  of  his  studies 
to  Utopia.     "  Anticipations  "  and  "  Mankind  in  the 

163 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

Making  "  are  the  bricks  and  mortar  out  of  which  he 
has  built  his  ideal  kingdom — or  rather  republic. 

"  A  Modern  Utopia  "  depicts  a  State  based  upon 
a  code  of  privileges  which  aim  at  the  administration 
of  affairs  for  the  welfare  of  all.  The  government  is 
in  the  hands  of  the  New  Republicans  of  "  Mankind 
in  the  Making,"  who  have  become  an  order  of 
Samurai,  living  a  life  of  exalted  discipline  and  service. 
The  social  system  of  this  Utopia  is  what  might  be 
called  class-socialism.  It  is  the  organisation  of 
humanity  into  a  series  of  four  grades,  in  keeping  with 
certain  observable  psychological  tendencies. 

At  the  bottom  of  the  social  scale  there  are  those 
people  who  are  by  nature  morally  deficient ;  these 
are  graded  as  the  Base.  Next  to  them  are  that  vast 
host  of  honest  folk  who  are  incapable  of  initiative 
but  willing  to  be  instructed  and  directed  ;  these  are 
called  the  Dull,  and  with  the  Base  Class  they  form 
the  Lower  Classes.  There  are  two  higher  classes : 
the  Kinetic  Class,  composed  of  the  practical  admini- 
strative people,  and  the  Poietic  or  people  of  ideas. 
The  last  is  the  highest  of  all.  The  Samurai  are  a 
patrician  class  drawn  from  the  two  upper  classes  by 
personal  worthiness  and  examination.  And  just  as 
it  is  possible  for  the  Kinetics  or  Poietics  to  become 
Samurai,  society  is  so  arranged  as  to  make  a  constant 
movement  possible  of  the  lower  classes  to  the  higher, 
and  of  all  classes  to  finer  states  of  social  life. 

The  greatest  privileges  in  "  A  Modern  Utopia  "  are 
awarded  to  the  higher  classes,  whose  members  are 

164 


H.    G.   WELLS 

expected  to  bear  the  greater  social  responsibilities. 
There  is  no  poverty,  and  labour  and  industry  are 
carried  on  under  a  system  of  perfect  organisation. 
All  the  material  dreams  of  "  Anticipations "  are 
actual  facts,  just  as  the  psychological  dreams  of 
"  Mankind  in  the  Making  "  are  facts.  "  A  Modern 
Utopia  "  is  a  vision  of  a  completed  human  growth ; 
it  is  mankind  not  in  the  making,  but  made.  It  is 
the  dream  of  a  country  in  which  the  most  powerful 
men  act  from  generous  and  unselfish  motives,  accord- 
ing to  a  given  recipe  ;  it  is  life  by  formula,  as  against 
life  by  instinct. 

From  this  systematic  vision  Wells  turns  to  a 
dream  of  a  fuller  freedom  ;  and  in  "  In  the  Days  of 
the  Comet "  he  abandons  system  and  principle  and 
gives  us  a  picture  of  a  world  grown  young  again. 
He  takes  the  world  as  we  know  it,  the  struggling, 
anxious  world  of  commercial  effort,  and  by  the 
magic  sweep  of  a  comet's  tail  he  inspires  it  with  an 
immaculate  goodwill  towards  all  men,  expressing 
itself  in  a  serene  and  beautiful  communism.  All 
men  are  equal,  and  all  are  happy.  Poverty  and  the 
diseases,  spiritual  and  physical,  which  poverty  and 
the  fear  of  poverty  bring  in  their  train  are  no  more. 
Commercial  strife  and  the  waste  of  competition  are 
at  an  end.  A  wonderful  picture  is  given  of  the  dawn 
of  this  new  era,  and  of  how  men  set  about  destroying 
every  vestige  of  the  ugly  past,  and  then  remoulding 
the  world  nearer  to  the  desires  of  hearts  and  minds  that 
are  free  for  ever  from  the  tyranny  of  private  ambition, 

165 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

One  is  inclined  to  believe  that  at  one  time  Wells 
had  faith  in  the  possibility  of  a  change  of  heart  that 
might  make  such  dreams  suddenly  practicable.  But 
in  his  latest  phase  his  Utopianism  is  a  pious  belief, 
a  dream  for  Sundays.  Utopia  is  something  we  may 
hope  for  as  a  reward  of  long  years  of  training  in 
worthy  citizenship  :  a  target  for  our  faith,  an  ideal, 
but  not  a  practical  scheme.  Nothing  short  of  a 
visit  of  Martians  or  the  sweep  of  a  comet's  tail  could 
make  us  suddenly  realise  our  common  humanity  so 
clearly  as  to  impel  us  to  inaugurate  for  ourselves  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  upon  earth. 

The  formula  which  turned  Wells'  science  into 
romance,  and  his  sociology  into  a  modern  Utopia, 
has  at  length  been  directed  to  actual  social  affairs, 
and  it  would  turn  these  into  Socialism.  Its  method 
of  manipulating  tendencies  and  processes  is  prac- 
tically the  same.  Wells  has  become  a  practical 
Utopist.  But  he  is  not  going  to  shatter  the  world 
to  bits  and  then  remould  it  nearer  to  his  heart's 
desire.  He  is  going  to  build  his  new  world  gradually, 
brick  by  brick,  street  by  street,  town  by  town,  until 
the  old  world  is  crowded  out. 

As  a  Socialist,  he  believes  in  educational  and 
constitutional  methods  of  propaganda,  and  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  uses  the  word  "  revolution,"  he  is 
a  revolutionist  only  in  the  sense  of  that  word  meaning 
change.  He  repudiates  anything  in  the  nature  of 
sudden  social  changes  by  means  of  insurrection.  In 
"  New  Worlds  for  Old,"  his  most  recent  book,  and 

166 


H.   G.   WELLS 

the  one  in  which  he  sets  forth  his  full  Socialistic 
faith,  he  adopts  the  propagandist  methods  of  the 
Fabian  Society,  that  is  to  say,  he  would  teach  the 
ideas  of  Socialism  and  at  the  same  time  use  what- 
ever parliamentary,  municipal,  or  other  authorised 
administrative  means  for  the  practical  application  of 
those  ideas.  He  looks  to  the  growth  of  the  sense  of 
service,  what  he  calls  "  goodwill,"  as  the  motive  power 
behind  the  movement  towards  Socialism. 

Its  basis  should  be  sensitive  and  conscious  recog- 
nition of  the  claims  of  the  future.  We  must  build 
for  the  future,  we  must  look  upon  life  as  a  garden 
that  can  be  trained  and  cultivated.  That  really  is 
the  spirit  in  which  H.  G.  Wells  approaches  the 
question  of  applied  Socialism.  He  is  a  social  puritan 
demanding  a  clean  and  orderly  citizenship ;  his 
practical  politics  are  a  constant  concern  for,  and  the 
fullest  possible  application  of  the  most  vital  means  of 
promoting  cleanliness,  health  and  decency  in  mind 
and  body,  and  seemliness  and  good  taste  in  the 
building  of  the  city  and  the  nation. 

1908 


167 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 


I  SIT  in  a  great  hall,  shaped  somewhat  like  an 
amphitheatre  ;  in  fact,  the  place  is  an  obsolete 
circus  in  a  northern  city,  now  given  over  to 
political  "  demonstrations "  and  other  monster 
forgatherings  of  the  people.  Reminiscences  of 
past  pomp  still  exist  in  its  canvas  ceiling,  scrawled 
over  with  crude  rococo  designs  in  faded  reds  and 
blues  and  golds,  and  from  the  highest  point  in  the 
centre  still  hangs  a  garish  cluster  of  gas  jets.  All 
aromid  is  a  dense  mass  of  people — far  denser  than  it 
had  ever  been  in  those  past  days  when  Whimsical 
Walker  made  the  house  rock  with  laughter  at  his 
clownish  antics,  or  when  some  fair  equestrienne 
dazzled  the  youth  as  she  leaped  lightly  from  the 
arena  on  to  the  plump  haunches  of  her  docile  horse  ; 
tier  upon  tier  they  rise,  six  thousand  strong,  like  a 
mountain  terraced  with  human  faces,  until  they 
fade  into  the  dim  heights  and  mingle  with  the  rococo 
cherubs  in  the  canvas  sky. 

The  vast  audience  is  familiar,  genial,  cheerful, 
yet  full  of  an  enthusiastic  tiptoe  expectancy.  It  is 
no  ordinary  political  meeting.     I  had  seen  many 

168 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

such  in  this  hall,  and  the  difference  is  quite  marked. 
I  remember  Lord  Randolph  Churchill  coming  to  the 
same  place  to  meet  a  throng  as  great  as  this.  The 
enthusiasm  ran  high,  but  it  was  of  a  different  order. 
It  was  self-confident  to  cocksureness  ;  but  it  left 
one  with  the  feeling  that  it  had  been  stage-managed. 
You  felt  the  people  admired  "  Randy,"  and  that  was 
all.  It  was  here  also  that  I  heard  Gladstone,  as  an 
old  man,  mighty  in  his  wrath,  hold  a  vast  crowd 
spell-bound  for  over  an  hour,  as  he  denounced  the 
Armenian  massacres.  But  that,  I  remember  think- 
ing, was  a  personal  triumph.  Gladstone  was  ad- 
mired, respected,  reverenced,  and  the  magnetism  of 
his  personality  was  inspiring  ;  but  it  ended  in  that 
monumental  eloquence  which  was  its  means  of 
expression.  Once  that  stopped,  all  was  over  and 
nothing  done. 

Here,  however,  the  case  is  different.  Conviction 
shines  from  the  earnest  faces  of  all.  They  have  not 
come  to  learn  anything  ;  they  have  come  to  reassert 
what  they  already  know.  They  have  not  come  to 
be  aroused  ;  they  have  come  to  show  that  they 
are  aroused.  One  personality,  however,  is  marked 
out  as  the  point  to  which  the  whole  interest  of  the 
audience  is  directed,  and,  amidst  the  beating  of 
those  waves  of  chatter  which  always  act  as  a  prelude 
to  such  gatherings,  one  name — or,  rather,  three 
names  for  one  person — can  be  heard  above  the 
genial  babble  :  "  Nunquam,"  "  Blatchford,"  and 
"  Robert."     The  expectancy  clusters  around  these 

169 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

names,  for  the  objective  of  the  assembly  is  to  meet 
Robert  Blatchford.  All  the  difference  between 
this  and  other  political  meetings  lies  in  that  simple 
fact.  Its  enthusiasm  has  a  certain  note  peculiar 
to  the  fact ;  it  is  a  note  born  not  only  of  admiration 
and  respect  but  of  love.  Robert  Blatchford  is  not 
an  aristocrat  or  a  statesman  come  to  talk  through 
them  for  the  benefit  of  Press  or  Cabinet ;  he  is  one 
of  themselves,  a  big  brother  who  has  given  a  voice 
and  direction  to  their  dreams  and  aspirations. 

The  enthusiasm  grows  keener  as  the  time  for  the 
arrival  of  the  guest  of  the  evening  draws  near.  There 
is  a  constant  hustle  of  excitement  marked  by  such 
incidents  as  hand-clapping  at  the  arrival  of  familiar 
personages  on  the  platform,  the  rustling  of  hand- 
bills and  newspapers,  predominant  among  which 
is  "  Nunquam's '  Clarion.  Greetings  are  thrown 
merrily  across  the  hall,  and  snatches  of  song  every 
now  and  then  float  out  of  the  mass.  The  songs  have 
a  revolutionary  accent ;  they  breathe  the  hopes  and 
aspirations  of  the  Socialists,  and  when  one  has 
ended  with  more  than  usual  gusto,  someone  calls  out 
"  Boots  !  "  to  which  there  is  a  hilarious  reply  of 
"  Spurs  !  "  after  the  manner  of  the  testing  of  wake- 
fulness in  the  barrack-room  of  Robert  Blatchford's 
soldier  tales. 

At  length  the  appointed  hour  arrives,  and  amidst 
tremendous  cheering,  clapping  of  hands,  and  waving 
of  handkerchiefs  and  hats,  the  whole  audience 
standing,    "  Nunquam "   appears.     He   is   a   short, 

170 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

thick-set  man  of  swarthy  complexion ;  he  wears  a 
heavy  moustache  and  close-cropped  hair,  both  of 
which  are  intensely  black,  and  his  expression  would 
be  stolid,  almost  sardonic,  were  it  not  for  the  peculiar 
and  sympathetic  light  of  his  eyes.  He  walks 
behind  the  chairman  towards  the  little  green- 
cloth-covered  table,  in  the  middle  of  the  platform, 
on  which  rests  a  water-bottle  and  glass,  and  a  vase 
containing  three  spikes  of  flaming  red  gladioli. 
The  thunderous  reception  probably  dazes  him  for  a 
moment ;  he  stands  for  a  while  contemplating  the 
scene  in  apparent  bewilderment.  Then  he  smiles 
pleasantly,  shakes  his  head,  and  moves  his  hands  in 
a  deprecating  way,  and  sits  down.  In  a  moment 
the  chairman  is  on  his  feet,  and  in  the  temporary 
stillness  announces  the  Socialist  hymn,  "  England, 
Arise ! '  This  is  greeted  with  stormy  approval, 
and  the  plaintive  air  of  Edward  Carpenter's  song 
becomes  robust  and  virile  with  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  moment.  There  is  a  compelling  note  in  the 
prophetic  demands  of  the  song : 

"  England,  arise  !     The  long,  long  night  is  over, 
Faint  in  the  East  behold  the  dawn  appear. 
Out  of  your  evil  dream  of  toil  and  sorrow, 
Arise,  O  England,  for  the  day  is  here. 
From  your  fields  and  hills 
Hark  !   the  answer  swells  : 
Arise,  O  England,  for  the  day  is  here."- 

And,  as  the  last  words  die  away,  renewed  cheering 
breaks   over  the   assembly.     Robert  Blatchford  is 

171 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

now  on  his  feet  again,  a  little  dark  speck  in  the  vast 
crowd,  yet  the  centre  of  all  this  wild  enthusiasm. 
"  Good  old  Robert !  "  someone  calls  out  affection- 
ately. "  Hear,  hear ! "  responds  everyone  else. 
"  Three  cheers  for  '  Merrie  England  '  "  are  demanded 
and  given  ;  then  three  more  for  "  Socialism  and  the 
Revolution."  "  Nunquam  "  stands  immobile,  like 
a  small  statue  in  ebony  with  face  and  hands  of  ivory. 
Now  he  raises  aloft  a  hand — and  silence  falls  over  the 
audience  ;  he  utters  his  opening  words  :  "  Comrades 

and  friends "    "  Boots  !  "  calls  out  someone  up 

among  the  cherubs.  "  Spurs  !  "  thunders  back  the 
audience.  "  Hip,  hip,  hurrah  !  " — then  quietness, 
and  with  this  final  assurance  of  wakefulness,  Robert 
Blatchford  begins  his  speech — which  everyone  takes 
for  granted,  but  only  half  can  hear.  "  Nunquam  " 
is  no  speaker,  but  that  is  a  detail.  He  is  Nun- 
quam the  Well-Beloved,  and  his  audience  is  quite 
content  merely  to  be  in  the  same  room  with 
him. 

II 

Robert  Blatchford,  whose  name  is  a  household 
word  among  the  ever-growing  ranks  of  Socialism, 
and  one  of  horror  among  the  orthodox,  is  a  thorough- 
going son  of  the  people.  He  wields  a  pen  which  is 
mighty  because  of  its  trenchant,  earnest  simplicity.  It 
is  really  the  pen  of  the  people,  proud  of  being  of  them 
and  happy  only  when  busy  in  their  cause.     No  one 

172 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

who  has  read  any  one  of  his  books  can  doubt  that  for  a 
moment,  and  no  one  who  knows  the  simplicity  of  his 
life  and  its  whole-hearted  devotion  to  this  cause  can 
fail  to  be  moved  by  its  earnestness,  its  thoroughness, 
and  its  prophetic  self-confidence.  For  Blatchford  is 
not  meek.  He  is  absolutely  and  irrevocably  certain 
that  he  is  right.  This  gives  his  unvarnished  Socialist 
writings  a  certain  arrogance  which,  did  they  lack 
the  sweet  reasonableness  of  their  lucid  dialectic, 
might  reduce  considerably  their  propaganda  value. 
As  it  is,  it  does  not  repel,  but  rather  does  it  affect 
the  susceptible  reader  with  a  like  brusque  self- 
confidence.  The  burden  of  his  message,  reiterated 
in  his  own  direct  phrase  a  thousand  times,  is : 
"Socialism  is  the  only  remedy."  There  is  no  hedg- 
ing, or  prevarication.  Blatchford,  like  Ibsen's  Brand, 
demands  "  All  or  nothing."  In  his  vision  of  society 
he  sees  only  the  rich  and  the  poor — the  rich  on  the 
backs  of  the  poor — and  he  looks  upon  philanthropy 
and  charitable  legislation  as  so  much  dross  in  the 
way  of  the  realisation  of  the  new  Golden  Age  when 
there  shall  be  no  more  poor.  He  sees  in  such  things 
but  the  exemplification  of  Tolstoy's  dictum  that 
"  The  rich  will  do  anything  for  the  poor — but  get 
off  their  backs."  Robert  Blatchford's  mission  is  to 
make  the  rich  get  off  the  backs  of  the  poor.  In  his 
fight  for  this  ideal  he  is  indefatigable  and  incor- 
ruptible. It  is  said  that  every  man  has  his  price  : 
this  is  probably  true,  but  all  men  are  not  to  be 
bought   with   money.     Blatchford   does   not   want 

i73 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

money  ;  he  became  a  poor  man  for  Socialism.  The 
lures  which  sometimes  destroy  other  men  do  not 
affect  him.  Flattery  leaves  him  unmoved.  There 
is  only  one  means  by  which  you  could  buy  "  Nun- 
quam  " — that  is  by  giving  him  Socialism. 

Those  who  have  been  cradled  in  poverty  and  after- 
wards attained  material  success  are  generally  most 
indifferent  to  the  sufferings  of  the  poor.  Whatever 
be  the  cause,  whether  it  be  that  they  become  "  tight- 
fisted  "  out  of  fear  of  reversals  which  might  bring 
them  to  poverty  again,  or  whether  they  are  convinced 
that  success  depends  upon  righteousness,  I  do  not 
know  ;  the  irony  of  the  thing  is  none  the  less.  But 
when  a  man  who  has  been  poor  and  who  has  had 
imagination  enough  to  hate  his  condition  attains 
success  without  loss  of  imagination  (a  very  rare  thing, 
by  the  way),  then  the  causes  of  poverty  are  in  danger. 
Robert  Blatchford  is  of  this  order. 

He  was  born  at  Maidstone  on  17th  March  1851, 
the  son  of  poor  travelling  actors.  His  mother  was 
Italian,  and  his  father  an  Englishman  who  died 
when  the  boy  was  two  years  old.  His  early  years 
were  spent  going  up  and  down  the  land  with  his 
mother  in  search  of  a  precarious  livelihood.  Some 
attempt  was  made  to  teach  him  stage  dancing,  but 
this  came  to  nothing.  What  little  schooling  he  had 
was  of  small  use  to  him,  and  by  sheer  doggedness  he 
taught  himself  how  to  read  when  he  was  nine  years 
old,  but,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  he  did  not  learn  how 
to  write  until  he  was  nearly  sixteen. 

174 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

The  life  of  the  child  up  to  this  time  must 
have  been  a  trial,  but  with  the  birth  of  his  new 
accomplishment  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth 
were  opened  unto  him.  He  revelled  in  books,  and 
he  devoured  all  reading  matter  that  came  in  his  way. 
As  he  grew  older  he  appeared  on  the  stage,  and  at  the 
age  of  eleven  he  sang  at  a  London  music  hall ;  but 
just  after  this  his  mother  retired  from  the  stage  and 
settled  at  Halifax,  where  young  Robert  was  sent  to 
learn  a  trade.  He  worked  for  two  years  at  a  litho- 
graphic printer's,  and  afterwards  was  apprenticed  to 
the  brushmaking  trade,  at  which  he  remained  until 
he  was  twenty  years  old,  when  he  could  endure 
it  no  longer,  so,  without  ceremony,  he  shook  the 
dust  of  Halifax  off  his  feet  and  the  bristles  of 
the  brushmaker  out  of  his  clothes,  and,  with  a 
light  heart  and  a  still  lighter  pocket,  tramped  to 
London. 

Here  luck  was  against  him,  and  he  sank  lower 
and  lower  into  the  mire  of  poverty,  and  on  one 
occasion  almost  sought  shelter  in  a  casual  ward  at 
Clerkenwell.  He  had  actually  gone  to  the  police 
office  for  the  necessary  ticket  when  an  old  woman 
dissuaded  him  from  this  resolve.  "  There  was  a 
crowd  of  casuals  round  the  police  office,"  he  says, 
"'  a  miserable  crew  ;  and  amongst  them  a  pale,  thin, 
ragged  woman,  who  sat  upon  the  pavement.  This 
woman  noticed  me,  and  at  last  said,  '  You  are  not 
going  into  the  ward,  are  you  ?  '  I  said  I  was.  She 
looked  at  mc  earnestly,  and  said,  '  My  poor  boy,  you 

i75 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

don't  know  what  you  are  going  to  do.  Don't  go 
there— don't  ye  go  there ;  it's  no  place  for  you. 
See,  I  know  these  places,  and  I  have  had  boys  of  my 
own,  and  you  must  not  go  into  this  ward ;  it  is  the 
worst  in  London.  Be  advised  by  me.'  So  I  thanked 
the  woman  and  went  away.  I  slept  that  night  stand- 
ing up  under  the  portico  of  the  Opera  House." 

Shortly  after  this  experience  he  joined  the  army 
and  served  in  the  103rd  Fusiliers  and  the  96th 
Regiment  for  nearly  seven  years,  attaining  the  rank 
of  sergeant,  and  being  placed  on  the  reserve  in  1877. 
His  life  in  the  army  was  the  turning-point  in  his 
career ;  it  rescued  him  from  poverty,  and  gave  him 
experiences  which  he  afterwards  used  so  well  in  his 
delightfully  humorous  "  Soldier  Tales,"  and  in  his 
masterly  novel  of  barrack  life,  "  Tommy  Atkins 
of  the  Ramchunders,"  which  Sir  Evelyn  Wood 
found  the  truest  picture  of  soldier  life  he  had  seen. 
It  was  also  while  in  the  army  that  his  mind  was 
awakened  to  the  deeper  problems  of  life  by  reading 
Carlyle's  "  Heroes  and  Hero-worship,"  lent  to  him 
by  a  fellow-sergeant.  On  leaving  the  army  he 
received  an  appointment  as  timekeeper  on  the 
Weaver  Navigation  at  Northwich  at  thirty  shillings 
a  week,  and  married  in  the  year  1880. 

HI 

He  did  not  start  writing  until  he  was  some  thirty- 
three  years  of  age,  when  for  a  few  months  he  contri- 

176 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

buted  sketches  to  The  Yorkshireman  and  Toby,  and 
in  1885  he  joined  the  staff  of  Bell's  Life,  on  which 
he  rapidly  made  a  name.  On  the  staff  of  this  paper 
also  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Edward  Francis 
Fay,  the  big-hearted  Rabelaisian,  who  eventually 
became  endeared  to  readers  of  The  Clarion  under 
the  name  of  "  The  Bounder,"  and  whose  life  now 
forms  the  subject  of  one  of  Blatchford's  most  de- 
lightful books,  "  The  Bounder  :  the  Story  of  a  Man, 
by  his  Friend."  In  the  August  of  the  same  year 
The  Manchester  Sunday  Chronicle  was  started,  and 
he  became  its  chief  contributor,  writing  under  the 
pen-name  of  "  Nunquam."  The  Chronicle  was  an 
immediate  success,  and  "  Nunquam  "  became  the 
best-known  writer  in  the  north  of  England.  Gradu- 
ally his  view  of  life  changed,  and  towards  1890 
he  was  openly  advocating  Socialism  in  the  Sunday 
Chronicle.  This  was  an  unheard-of  thing  in  those 
days,  and  his  action  invoked  the  wrath  of  his  pro- 
prietors. Robert  Blatchford  had,  however,  received 
the  call ;  and  rather  than  sell  his  pen  he  renounced 
his  position,  which  was  worth  a  thousand  pounds 
a  year,  and  with  three  friends,  one  of  whom 
was  "  The  Bounder,"  and  the  other  Alexander 
M.  Thompson  ("  Dangle  "),  who  had  followed  him 
into  Socialism,  he  started  The  Clarion  in  1891. 

That  was  an  heroic  and,  in  many  ways,  a  memor- 
able performance.  In  the  first  place,  the  paper  was 
started  relatively  without  funds,  the  capital  being 
something  like  three  hundred  pounds,  a  sum  which 

m  i77 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

would  have  proved  very  inadequate  to  any  but  those 
who  were  prepared  to  rough  it.  Secondly,  The 
Clarion  was  something  new  in  journalism  :  it  was, 
and  is,  unique.  It  was  unique  then  as  being  a 
Socialist  paper,  which  could  be  read  with  pleasure 
by  people  of  all  shades  of  political  thought ;  but  it 
was  more  remarkable  in  that  it  had  a  personality 
quite  different  to  anything  previously  known  to 
journalism.  Usually  the  personality  of  a  paper  is 
the  personality  of  its  editor,  but  the  personality 
of  The  Clarion  is  a  family  affair,  in  which  all  the 
members  of  the  staff  take  a  share.  It  is,  in  itself, 
the  expression  of  a  kind  of  Socialism  in  which  each 
member  of  the  community  is  provided  with  the 
conditions  under  which  he  may  best  develop  his 
own  individuality.  The  result  in  The  Clarion  has 
entirely  justified  the  original  experiment,  for  all 
The  Clarion  personalities  have  thriven  under  it  in 
an  exceptional  way. 

Robert  Blatchford's  subsequent  life  was  to  be 
wrapped  up  in  The  Clarion  \  That  has  been  his 
platform,  although  he  is  by  no  means  unknown  to 
the  platforms  of  Socialist  meetings,  and  in  the  year 
of  The  Clarion's  birth  he  was  adopted  as  Parlia- 
mentary candidate  for  East  Bradford,  but  withdrew 
before  the  contest.  The  Clarion  started  with  a  circu- 
lation of  about  thirty  thousand,  and  this  has  gradually 
increased  until  to-day  it  stands  at  about  eighty  thou- 
sand. No  other  English  paper  has  quite  the  same  hold 
upon  its  readers,  and  no  other  paper  has  succeeded  in 

178 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

making  its  readers  feel  themselves  to  be  collaborators 
in  The  Clarion  idea,  for  The  Clarion  is  not  merely  a 
paper — it  is  a  movement,  with  a  language  and 
humour  of  its  own.  Its  ramifications  spread  all 
over  the  country,  and  embrace  such  varied  activities 
as  cycle  clubs,  field  clubs,  guilds  of  handicraft, 
scouts  for  the  propagation  of  Socialism,  cinderellas, 
through  which  numberless  poor  children  are  fed 
every  year,  reading  and  correspondence  circles, 
and  The  Clarion  Fellowship,  v/hich  was  intended 
to  weld  the  various  groups  into  something  like  a 
homogeneous  organisation. 

IV 

The  editor  of  The  Clarion,  and  uncrowned  king 
of  all  these  activities,  is  one  of  the  few  living 
writers  who  can  write  in  simple  language  with  dis- 
tinction and  charm.  His  "  Merrie  England,"  and 
his  other  popular  expositions  of  Socialism  and 
Determinism,  "  Britain  for  the  British,"  "  God  and 
my  Neighbour,"  and  "  Not  Guilty,"  are  master- 
pieces of  simple  and  lucid  English — and  few  books 
of  modern  times  have  created  so  much  controversy 
as  they  have.  These  four  volumes  have  created  a 
revolution  in  the  mental  outlook  of  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  working  men  ;  in  fact,  they  have  gone 
far  towards  making  thinking  beings  of  the  members 
of  the  vast  working  populations  of  the  north  of 
England. 

179 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

"  Merrie  England  "  is  a  book  that  has  already 
made  history.  Over  a  million  copies  have  been  sold 
in  England  alone,  and  probably  twice  as  many  in 
America.  Besides  this,  it  has  been  translated  into 
Welsh,  Dutch,  German,  Swedish,  French,  Spanish, 
Hebrew,  Danish,  and  Norwegian.  The  effect  of  the 
volume,  with  its  amazingly  lucid  exposition  of  the 
idea  of  Socialism,  was  electric.  It  has  been  said  that 
one  year  before  its  publication  there  were  not  more 
than  a  thousand  Socialists  in  Lancashire ;  twelve 
months  after  there  were  known  *o  be  fifty  thousand. 

Whether  in  his  novels  or  his  essays,  the  predomin- 
ant features  of  Robert  Blatchford's  writings  are 
goodwill  and  tolerance.  At  the  same  time  he  is  no 
slave  to  dogma,  even  to  the  dogma  of  free  thought. 
His  goodwill  is  not  inconsistent  with  a  good  fight, 
and  he  has  scandalised  many  of  his  comrades  in 
Socialism  by  his  consistent  militarism.  He  sees 
mankind  as  the  creatures  of  circumstance,  and  the 
basis  of  his  attack  upon  modern  society  is  a  plea  for 
better  human  conditions.  He  does  not  blame  any- 
one for  these  conditions.  They  are  all  a  part  of  a 
system  which  is  wrong.  Robert  Blatchford's  mission 
is  to  show  people  why  this  is  wrong,  and  how  the 
wrong  may  be  righted.  Addressing  John  Smith,  of 
Oldham,  the  typical  working  man,  he  says  : 

"  Your  duty,  it  seems  to  me,  is  clear  enough. 
First  of  all,  having  seen  that  misery  and  wrong 
exist,  it  is  your  duty  to  find  out  why  they  exist. 
Having  found  out  why  they  exist,  it  is  your  duty  to 

180 


ROBERT   BLATCHFORD 

seek  for  means  to  abolish  them.  Having  found  out 
means  to  abolish  them,  it  is  your  duty  to  apply  these 
means,  or,  if  you  have  not  yourself  the  power,  it  is 
your  duty  to  persuade  others  to  help  you." 

The  appeal  of  Robert  Blatchford  is  to  the  humanity 
and  common-sense  of  men.  He  is  convinced  that  the 
human  heart  is  finally  good,  but  that  it  has  lost  its 
way  in  a  jungle  of  selfishness  and  ignorance.  If  one 
could  only  make  it  realise  this,  all  would  be  well. 
That  is  his  desire  and  his  faith.  That  is  the  motive 
behind  the  work  of  his  life. 

1908 


iSi 


PAVLOVA   AND   THE   DANCING 

SPIRIT 

IT  is  impossible  to  describe  a  great  dancer  or  a 
great  dance — I  mean  in  words.  It  can  be  done 
in  music,  and  Degas  and  one  or  two  others  have 
done  it  in  paint.  More  particularly  is  it  beyond  the 
art  of  letters  to  describe  Pavlova.  There  is  nothing 
upon  which  words  can  hang  themselves  ;  she  is 
intangible  as  air,  as  light  and  as  wonderful.  Genee, 
Polaire,  and  Isidora  Duncan  are  also  great  dancers, 
but  it  is  easier  to  capture  some  of  their  character- 
istics in  a  noose  of  words,  because  they  have  that 
something  which  we  call  individuality.  They  are 
dancers  of  a  kind,  individualists  of  dancing ;  per- 
sonality dominates  their  art. 

Pavlova  is  dancing  incarnate  ;  she  is  all  the  others 
in  one ;  she  is  the  very  spirit  of  the  dance,  neither 
classical,  traditional,  nor  modern,  but  all  three — 
an  ever-changing  trinity  of  enraptured  motion. 
She  does  not  make  you  think  of  herself ;  she  sets 
you  dreaming  of  all  the  dancing  that  has  ever  been, 
of  all  the  dancing  that  is.  Whilst  watching  her  I 
could  not  help  thinking  she  was  not  merely  following 
the  rules  of  an  art,  but  that  she  was  following  the 
rules  of  life.    The  leaves  dance  in  the  breeze,  the 

182 


PAVLOVA   AND   DANCING 

flowers  dance  in  the  sun,  the  worlds  dance  in  space, 
and  Pavlova  dancing  is  a  part  of  this  cosmic  measure. 

Everybody  in  the  theatre  must  have  felt  some- 
thing similar — especially  when  she  and  Michael 
Mordkin,  her  superb  consort  in  the  art,  danced 
together  the  Bacchanale  of  Glazounov.  I  imagine 
also  those  dim  segments  of  faces  in  the  darkened 
auditorium,  many  of  them  reflecting  the  frigid 
morality  of  English  respectability,  would  be  touched 
to  strange  emotions.  Their  staid  owners  would  feel 
a  new  wakefulness,  recalling  as  in  a  dream  all  that 
had  ever  happened  to  them  of  passion  or  beauty,  all 
that  might  have  happened  to  them  had  they  followed 
their  real  desires,  their  sacred  whims.  You  could 
indeed  feel  the  heart  of  the  audience  in  its  very 
happiness  linking  itself  with  memory  and  regret, 
for  in  the  very  temple  of  delight,  as  Keats  knew, 
veiled  Melancholy  hath  her  sovran  shrine. 

But  for  myself,  regret  was  ever  tinged  with  a  fuller 
joy.  I  felt  all  the  laughter  of  the  world  coursing 
through  me ;  I  was  pulled  back  into  a  younger  period, 
when  men  and  gods  were  on  speaking  terms  with 
one  another : 

"  And  as  I  sat,  over  the  light  blue  hills 
There  came  a  noise  of  revellers  :  the  rills 
Into  the  wide  stream  came  of  purple  hue — 

?Twas  Bacchus  and  his  crew  ! 
The  nearest  trumpet  spake,  and  silver  thrills 
From  kissing  cymbals  made  a  merry  din — 

!Twas  Bacchus  and  his  kin  ! 

183 


ROMANCE    AND   REALITY 

Like  to  a  moving  vintage  down  they  came, 
Crowned  with  green  leaves,  and  faces  all  on  flame  ; 
All  madly  dancing  through  the  pleasant  valley, 
To  scare  thee,  Melancholy  !  '-'- 

The  swaying  form  of  Pavlova  rhymed  and  romped 
with  life  and  joy,  with  love  and  beauty.  O  the  wild 
flight  across  the  stage,  the  hot  pursuit,  the  sweet 
dalliance,  and  then  the  rich  luxury  of  capture  and 
supreme  surrender !  The  very  essence  of  life  was 
there :  life  so  full  of  joy  that  it  overflowed  with 
blissful  abandonment  until  it  sank  from  the  only 
pardonable  excess — excess  of  happiness. 

She  dances  with  soul  as  well  as  body  ;  her  beautiful 
slight  form  is  but  the  instrument  upon  which  she 
plays  the  psalm  of  life.  And  her  face  dances  too, 
dances  in  joy  and  fear,  in  surrender,  and  in  the 
rapture  of  accomplished  passion.  She  is  the  first 
dancer  I  have  seen  whose  face  also  dances.  Rarely 
does  one  see  such  a  vivid  facial  expression  of  absolute 
joy,  never  before  in  a  dancer.  Most  other  dancers' 
faces  are  too  preoccupied  with  their  steps.  Pavlova 
looks  as  if  she  has  no  preoccupations — she  just  lives. 
For  her  there  is  neither  future  nor  past,  only  the 
mad  rhythmic  present. 

That  really  is  what  dancing  should  be.  Dancing 
is  rhythmic  life.  When  life  is  most  intense,  when  it 
is  master  of  its  own  destiny,  then  it  sways  and  rhymes 
and  dances,  it  becomes  lyrical.  Dancing  is  the  song 
of  the  body,  the  lyric  of  form.  It  bears  the  same 
relation  to  motion  as  the  flower  does  to  the  plant  : 

184 


PAVLOVA   AND   DANCING 

it  is  a  phase  of  efflorescence,  a  sign  of  ripeness. 
William  Blake  got  very  near  the  heart  of  this  mys- 
terious thing  when  he  said,  "  Exuberance  is  Beauty." 
People  only  dance  when  they  feel  the  exuberance 
of  life  coursing  through  their  veins.  And  there  is  a 
very  real  link  between  the  Danse  Bacchanale  of 
Pavlova  and  Michael  Mordkin  and  the  circling 
scamper  of  the  children  on  the  village  green  to  the 
delicious  eternal  nonsense  of  : 

"  Here  we  dance — Looby  Loo  ! 
And  here  we  dance — Looby  Light  ! 
Here  we  dance — Looby  Lum  ! 
All  on  a  Saturday  night  !  '-'- 

But  the  conventional  measures  of  the  modern 
ballroom  are  not  dancing  :  they  are  as  far  removed 
from  the  spirit  of  dance  as  an  orgy  in  a  modern  gin- 
palace  is  from  a  festival  of  Dionysos.  The  ballroom 
is  a  fashion,  like  rinking,  and  it  will  go  the  way  of  all 
fashions.  It  is  a  kill-time  for  those  who  are  too 
weary  to  live,  an  amusement  for  those  who  have  no 
life  to  spare,  for  people  whose  vitality  is  exhausted 
or  atrophied.  Now  and  then  you  do  see  a  bit  of 
genuine  dancing  in  a  ballroom :  two  lovers  are 
mysteriously  moved  by  some  strain  in  a  common 
waltz  tune,  and  they  begin  to  dance.  But  a  whisper 
immediately  goes  round  the  room,  starting  from  the 
dowagers'  chairs,  where  elderliness  is  stamping  on 
happiness,  and  the  burst  of  exuberance  is  called  im- 
proper ! 

185 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

Far  otherwise  is  it,  however,  in  the  "'  sixpenny 
hops  "  of  those  who  have  no  respectability  to  main- 
tain. In  the  reeking  atmosphere  of  the  dancing- 
rooms  of  the  East  End  you  will  see  dancing  that  has 
little  art,  but  much  life.  It  is  gross  and  graceless, 
but  it  possesses  what  the  ballroom  lacks — passion, 
joy.  I  often  think  that  our  comfortable  middle- 
class  people  should  not  attempt  to  dance.  They 
no  longer  live  :  their  ideals  are  money,  appearance, 
prestige,  and  these  things  have  nothing  to  do  with 
life.  It  is  only  those  who  have  never  had  or  who 
have  long  since  abandoned  these  ideals  that  can 
dance  :  children,  simple  peasant  folk,  common  East 
End  Cockneys,  and  the  elect — those  who  create, 
those  who  have  the  exuberance  which  is  life  and 
beauty.  But  the  rest  are  still  fortunate,  for  just  as 
they  live  by  proxy,  so  can  they  dance  by  proxy. 
Pavlova  and  the  great  dancers  are  very  kind — they 
will  dance  before  them,  if  not  exactly  for  them. 

"  I  will  only  believe  in  a  God  who  can  dance,"  said 
Nietzsche  ;  and  those  who  are  alive  to  the  real  issues 
of  life  will  be  with  him.  One  should  dance  because 
the  soul  dances.  Indeed,  when  one  thinks  of  it,  what 
are  any  real  things  but  dances  ?  I  mean  the  only 
realities — moments  of  joy,  acts  of  pleasure,  deeds  of 
kindness.  Even  the  long  silences,  the  deep  quiet- 
ness of  serene  souls,  are  dances  ;  that  is  why  they 
seem  so  motionless.  When  the  top  dances  most 
perfectly  it  seems  most  still ;  just  as  the  apparently 
still  earth  is  dancing  round  itself  and  round  the  sun  ; 

186 


PAVLOVA  AND   DANCING 

just  as  the  stars  dance  in  the  night.  All  art  is  a 
dance ;  the  painter  is  but  a  ballet-master  marshalling 
the  dance  of  light  and  colour  ;  a  poem  is  a  dance  of 
words  ;  music  a  dance  of  tones.  And  why,  there- 
fore, should  we  not  have  gods  that  dance  ?  Perhaps 
Pavlova  and  her  sisters  in  the  great  art  will  teach 
them. 

But  maybe  they  dance  already,  only  we  cannot  see 
them.  Who  knows  ?  Let  us  not  forget  that  religion 
and  dance  have  often  gone  hand  in  hand.  There 
have  been  many  guesses  at  the  riddle  of  life,  and 
there  will  be  many  more ;  for  mystery  still  lies  around 
us  and  about — it  lies  within  us  and  above,  it  throws 
dust  in  our  eyes,  and  lays  in  our  path  barricades  that 
seem  invincible.  But  we  shall  not  cease  striving  to 
peer  through  that  veil  of  dust,  to  mount  those  barri- 
cades :  to  light  the  lamp  of  vision,  after  our  own 
manner.  I  also  shall  guess.  Indeed  I  have  done  so 
a  thousand  times,  as  which  of  us  has  not  ?  Some- 
times I  fancy  life  is  nothing  after  all  but  a  glorious 
dance,  a  carnival  of  motion  beginning  in  dance, 
continuing  in  dance ;  and  when  the  end  comes  it  is 
but  a  signal  from  the  Master  of  the  Ballet  that  the 
dance  shall  begin  again,  for  there  is  no  end.  Yes, 
there  can  be  no  further  doubt,  the  gods  are  always 
dancing,  and  the  great  dancers  are  among  the  true 

prophets. 

1910 


187 


THE   LITHOGRAPHIC   PORTRAITS 
OF   WILL   ROTHENSTEIN 

A  S  the  hurrying  years  strip  the  inessentials 
Zjk  from  the  records  of  man  and  his  doings 
JL  jfc^we  find  that  high  up  in  the  scale  of  the 
things  that  endure  are  the  records  of  personality  in 
art.  Men  have  always  been  curious  about  each 
other,  and  three  parts  of  art  is  an  infinite  capacity 
for  taking  and  comparing  notes.  And,  in  spite  of 
Attica,  in  spite  of  the  Parthenon  and  Praxiteles, 
the  personal  element  in  art  endures.  An  artist 
must  of  course  be  master  of  his  materials  first, 
he  must  know  of  a  certainty  how  to  use  the  media 
of  his  art  with  never-failing  deftness  and  fastidious 
care ;  but  once  that  is  attained,  it  is  the  quality 
of  his  personality  which  comes  into  sway.  Great 
vision  must  be  woven  in  the  texture  of  his  skill,  or 
his  effort  were  vain — a  thing  of  a  day. 

Matthew  Arnold's  dictum,  that  poetry  at  bottom 
is  a  criticism  of  life,  is  applicable  to  all  art.  And 
this  is  just  where  the  personal  element  comes  in. 
The  artist  does  not  only  create,  he  discriminates. 
Art  is  always  a  series  of  choices  between  definite 
ways  of  interpreting  life.  This  act  of  choice  is  an 
act  of  criticism.  It  is  an  assertion  of  preference, 
the  most  intensely  personal  assertion  of  the  way  of 

188 


WILL    ROTHENSTEIN 

doing  a  thing  known  to  a  man.  And  just  as  far  as 
the  artist,  once  he  is  an  artist,  has  an  attractive 
personality,  to  that  extent  does  his  art  interest  his 
fellows.  That  art  which  endures  longest  is  a  com- 
bination of  the  most  perfect  balance  between 
technique  and  personalit}^. 

This  is  borne  out  in  the  arts  of  painting  and 
drawing,  in  the  interest  taken  in  the  actual  pictures 
of  men  and  women,  although  personality  need  not 
necessarily  express  itself  in  that  way.  But  in  the 
portrait  of  a  man  we  have  a  dual  personality,  that 
of  the  sitter  and  that  of  the  painter,  a  fact  which 
explains  the  immense  and  constantly  growing  in- 
terest in  the  art  of  portraiture.  Every  year  the 
Royal  Academy  seems  to  grow  nearer  to  the  ideal 
of  the  National  Portrait  Gallery,  and  it  is  an  open 
secret  that  painters,  with  few  exceptions,  could 
hardly  subsist  at  all  but  for  this  all-pervading  desire 
of  the  counterfeit  presentment. 

The  art  of  Mr  Will  Rothenstein  is  largely  confined 
to  the  art  of  portraiture,  but  not  necessarily  of 
known  men  and  women.  He  is  intensely  curious 
of  personality ;  he  wants  to  record  the  innermost 
secret  of  everyone  he  sees.  He  is  possessed  of  an 
inquisitiveness  that  will  not  let  him  rest.  It  is  as 
though  he  were  a  Joseph  constantly  meeting  people 
who  are  dreams  to  be  interpreted  for  the  under- 
standing of  Pharaoh — but  in  this  case  the  Pharaoh 
is  himself.  I  doubt  if  Mr  Rothenstein  gives  a 
thought  to  any  other  Pharaoh.  He  dreams  his  own 
dreams,  and  interprets  them  for  himself. 

189 


ROMANCE   AND  REALITY 

?  The  idea  of  interpretation  always  suggests  itself 
when  considering  his  work.  In  all  his  pictures 
there  is  a  strong  intellectual  element ;  he  is  a  painter 
who  thinks  as  well  as  sees.  But  he  is  too  much  of 
an  artist  ever  to  allow  the  mind  to  dominate  the 
imagination.  At  the  same  time,  his  more  purely 
aesthetic  work  is  to  be  seen  in  those  subjects  which 
demand  less  of  the  intellect,  such  as  landscape.  Here 
his  art  abandons  itself  to  the  sensuous  charm  and 
delight  of  his  theme.  The  mind  does  not  interfere 
with  the  mysterious  and  beautiful  arrangement  of 
colour  from  a  palette  which  seems  to  have  come 
from  the  Orient  by  way  of  Paris,  catching,  on  its 
way,  some  of  the  subtle  and  daring  tones  of  the 
French  impressionists. 

But  in  his  portraits  and  studies  of  men,  particu- 
larly in  that  fine  series  of  pictorial  interpretations 
of  Jewish  life  in  the  East  End  of  London,  there  is 
no  such  complete  freedom  of  the  imagination.  In 
almost  all  of  these  paintings  the  artist  is  half  a 
philosopher.  One  is  constantly  reminded  of  Watts, 
yet  Mr  Rothenstein  is  never  so  frank  a  symbolist, 
and  rarely  such  an  idealist.  Indeed,  he  is  a  realist 
who  sees  beneath  the  surface  of  things.  He  is  a 
realist  who  gives  significance  to  that  often  forgotten 
reality,  the  spirit  of  man,  rather  than  making  a 
fetish  of  his  physical  qualities. 

There  is,  however,  a  still  further  resemblance 
between  the  work  of  Mr  Will  Rothenstein  and  that 
of  George  Frederick  Watts;  and  again  it  is  in 
reference  to  portraiture.     Both  painters  have  made 

190 


WILL    ROTHENSTEIN 

pictorial  records  of  the  notable  men  of  their  day, 
and,  as  the  years  pass  away,  it  will,  without  doubt, 
be  seen  that  the  younger  artist's  work  is  no  less 
sincere  and  earnest  in  its  motive,  nor  less  capable 
in  its  art,  than  that  of  the  older  artist,  whose  por- 
traits are  the  chief  glory  of  the  National  Portrait 
Gallery.  So  important  are  these  lithographs  of 
Mr  Rothenstein's  that  some  means  ought  to  be 
found  for  securing  a  complete  series  for  permanent 
hanging  in  the  National  Portrait  Gallery.  These 
lithographic  portraits  are  as  representative  of  the 
personal  genius  and  ability  of  the  age  as  it  is  pos- 
sible for  such  a  series  to  be.  Mr  Rothenstein  has 
practically  drawn  everybody  whose  name  stands 
for  anything  in  modern  imagination  and  thought. 
The  wisdom  of  his  choice,  and  the  excellence  of  his 
portraiture,  have  been  recognised  in  many  directions. 
This  may  be  seen  in  the  growing  number  of  volumes 
which  are  appearing  graced  with  reproductions  of 
his  drawings.  One  remembers  the  fine  drawing  of 
Coquelin  in  Mr  Arthur  Symons'  "  Plays,  Acting  and 
Music,"  and  that  of  Ernest  Dowson  in  the  collected 
edition  of  the  poet's  work,  also  the  study  of  Mr  George 
Moore  which  appeared  as  the  frontispiece  to  "  Sister 
Teresa." 

Most  of  the  portraits  were  drawn  in  the  eighteen- 
nineties,  and  it  is  of  that  lively  decade  in  British 
art  that  they  are  most  representative.  And  very 
fittingly  many  of  them  first  appeared  between 
the  famous  covers  of  the  Yellow  Book.  A  folio, 
with  a  selection,  was  issued  later  on  by  Mr  Grant 

191 


ROMANCE  AND  REALITY 

Richards  ;  and  those  who  are  alive  to  any  genuinely 
worthy  note  in  journalism  will  not  easily  forget  the 
first  (and  only)  illustrated  supplementof  The  Saturday 
Review,  issued  for  Christmas  1896,  which  contained, 
among  other  treasures,  Mr  Rothenstein's  portraits 
of  "  John  Oliver  Hobbes  "  and  Mr  Beerbohm  Tree, 
not  to  mention  a  delightful  lithographic  drawing  of  a 
lady,  reproduced  in  a  delicate  shade  of  green,  and 
the  bold  and  original  cover  design,  produced  in  two 
tones,  and  representing  in  strong,  beautiful  lines  the 
lady  of  the  lithograph  brooding  over  the  page. 
These  drawings  alone  should  make  this  unique 
number  of  a  famous  journal  an  artistic  treasure. 
But  apart  from  what,  after  all,  is  a  remarkably 
meagre  publicity  for  such  a  series  of  portraits,  the 
main  body  of  this  side  of  Mr  Will  Rothenstein's  work 
is  practically  unknown  to  even  the  cultured  public. 
It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  this  printing-press 
publicity  has  been,  from  time  to  time,  augmented  by 
exhibitions,  where  a  more  representative  collection 
of  the  drawings  has  appeared.  Among  the  chief  of 
these  displays  was  that  at  the  Cartwright  Memorial 
Hall,  Bradford  (the  artist's  native  town),  where  a 
room  was  practically  devoted  to  his  lithographs. 

The  representative  nature  of  the  series  could  only 
be  conveyed  on  paper  by  a  list  of  eminent  names 
which  would  fill  a  page  or  more.  Among  the  leading 
British  writers  there  are  drawings  of  George  Gissing, 
Thomas  Hardy,  Ernest  Dowson,  W.  B.  Yeats, 
A.  E.  Housman,  W.  H.  Hudson,  R.  B.  Cunninghame 
Graham,  Joseph  Conrad,  JohnMorley,  Robert  Bridges, 

192 


WILL    ROTHENSTEIN 

Prof.  Gilbert  Murray,  W.  H.  Lecky,  Bernard  Shaw, 
W.  E.  Henley,  John  Davidson,  and  H.  G.  Wells. 
Painters  and  artists  are  represented  by  Walter  Crane, 
John  S.  Sargent,  Charles  H.  Shannon, Max  Beerbohm, 
Aubrey  Beardsley,  and  others.  Then  there  are 
drawings  of  Lord  Kelvin,  Alfred  Russel  Wallace, 
and  other  leaders  of  science ;  and  musicians  like 
Sir  Hubert  Parry  and  Sir  Villiers  Stanford.  Besides 
this,  Mr  Will  Rothenstein  has  gone  abroad,  and 
included  many  of  the  distinctive  personalities  in 
literature,  painting,  and  the  drama  on  the  Continent. 
In  this  section  there  are  Rodin,  Coquelin,  Fantin 
Latour,  Paul  Verlaine,  Adolf  von  Menzel,  Haupt- 
mann,  and  Ernest  de  Goncourt. 

In  looking  through  this  series  of  drawings,  one  is 
first  struck  by  its  amazingly  representative  nature. 
Mr  Will  Rothenstein  has  really  done  more  than  Watts, 
who  practically  confined  himself  to  the  highest 
points  of  genius  —  those  lofty  peaks  which  do  not 
represent  so  much  the  active  intelligence  of  an  age 
as  its  most  eminent  aspirations.  A  Browning,  a 
John  Stuart  Mill,  a  Newman,  or  a  Tennyson,  are 
the  consummation  of  a  human  period  :  they  are 
the  symbols  of  accumulated  genius  and  culture,  and 
more  properly  the  final  effect  of  an  era,  rather 
than  an  era  in  being.  Mr  Rothenstein's  pencil  has 
given  us  a  fuller  utility  than  even  the  brush  of 
Watts,  because  it  has  recorded  for  us  an  era  in  being. 
He  has  not  merely  glorified  what  is  already  accepted, 
but  he  has  sought  out  and  given  personal  significance 
to  energies  that  were,  and  in  many  cases  still  are, 
ft  193 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

to  become  more  fully  known.  All  the  vital  ten- 
dencies of  the  decade  covered  by  his  series  are 
represented  in  these  drawings. 

Next,  one  is  impressed  by  Mr  Rothenstein's 
draughtsmanship  :  the  delicate  and  subtle  strength 
of  his  line,  his  amazing  skill  in  the  use  of  his  materials, 
and  the  consummate  art  with  which  he  has  brought 
out  the  nicest  possibilities  of  the  lithographic  process. 
In  this  last  alone  he  has  produced  a  work  which 
must  rank  with  the  great  series  of  lithographs  of 
Whistler,  and  on  lines  quite  as  individual  as  those 
of  that  master. 

Then  one  begins  to  realise  the  immense  inter- 
pretative nature  of  the  series  ;  the  whole  activity 
of  the  best  elements  in  a  nation's  genius  passes  before 
the  eye  in  a  procession  of  strikingly  impressive  faces 
and  nervous,  communicative  hands.  There  is  one 
feature  that  is  common  to  all  these  portraits,  it  is 
in  the  nature  of  a  dominant  refinement  of  the  intelli- 
gence of  the  subjects  to  a  point  of  almost  conscious 
fastidiousness.  Mr  Rothenstein  sees  the  personal 
intellect  and  imagination  of  his  age  as  a  kind  of  super- 
sensitiveness.  Each  of  his  subjects  fulfils  the  idea  of 
the  artist  as  the  critic  of  life.  Marius  the  Epicurean 
lurks  behind  the  features  of  all  of  his  people,  refining, 
rejecting,  and  paring  away,  in  their  own  several 
ways,  the  grossness,  the  inessential,  the  otiose 
matter,  until  the  ultimate  reality,  the  final  beauty 
of  things  is  revealed. 

This  quality  is  obvious  in  almost  every  one  of 
the  portraits — in  the  large  workman-like  figure  of 

i94 


WILL    ROTHENSTEIN 

Rodin,  no  less  than  in  the  shrinking  figure  of  Ernest 
Dowson  ;  in  the  almost  athletic  pugnacity  of  Co- 
quelin,  and  in  the  scholarly  wistfulness  of  Robert 
Bridges ;  in  the  aristocratic  aggressiveness  of 
Cunninghame  Graham,  in  the  almost  supercilious 
friandise  of  W.  H,  Lecky,  and  in  the  direct 
and  bluff  attitude  of  William  Ernest  Henley,  as 
well  as  in  the  nonchalant  and  audacious  pose  of 
Bernard  Shaw.  In  all  it  is  the  same,  revealing  in 
unmistakable  terms  the  underlying  and  natural 
aristocratic  nature  of  genius.  Mr  Rothenstein  sees 
and  reveals  the  master. 

Individually  one  is  naturally  drawn  by  personal 
preference  to  one  portrait  more  than  another.  But 
for  sheer  ability  and  clever  drawing  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  any  that  excel  the  Coquelin,  with 
its  delicate  suggestion  of  rude  strength,  and  what 
might  be  termed  cosmic  humour ;  and  the  portrait 
of  Mr  Charles  H.  Shannon,  with  its  uncommon 
pose  and  its  rare  and  dainty  arrangement  of  sin- 
uously rhythmic  lines.  The  portrait  of  Henley 
brings  out  the  virile  personality  of  the  poet,  and 
more  especially  the  masterful  qualities  which  went 
to  the  making  of  the  most  discriminating  of  editors. 
There  are  several  drawings  of  Rodin,  and  one,  at 
least,  is  a  masterpiece.  It  represents  the  sculptor 
seated  sideways,  with  his  massive,  intelligent  hand 
resting  lovingly  upon  a  torso,  whilst  his  eye  looks 
critically  towards  a  stooping  model  just  suggested 
in  the  distance.  There  is  more  of  the  real  Rodin  in 
this  drawing  than  in  any  portrait  I  have  seen.     It 

i95 


ROMANCE   AND   REALITY 

indicates  his  immense  power — the  power  of  a  man 
who  makes  statues  in  the  spirit  of  an  inspired 
workman,  not  for  the  sake  of  art  and  the  valuations 
of  critics,  be  they  never  so  superior,  but  for  the  sake 
of  some  joyful  and  irresistible  impulse  towards 
creative  work. 

The  drawing  of  Mr  Bernard  Shaw  is  not  so  satis- 
fying. Mr  Rothenstein  seems  to  be  too  conscious 
of  the  challenging  side  of  the  playwright-philosopher. 
He  has  allowed  his  intellect  to  dominate  his  pencil 
overmuch.  At  the  same  time,  he  has  caught  the 
piquant  and  combative  attitude  of  our  leading  con- 
troversialist. That  of  Mr  H.  G.  Wells  is  a  later 
product,  having  been  done  so  recently  as  1904.  It 
is  an  excellent  likeness,  in  heavier  line  than  the 
earlier  work,  and  gives  a  good  idea  of  the  thought- 
burdened  imagination  of  the  novelist,  peering 
beneath  deep  brows  into  some  distant  Utopia, 
with  a  note  of  prophetic  earnestness.  The  clear-cut 
drawing  of  Mr  R.  B.  Cunninghame  Graham  is  a 
delightful  interpretation  of  this  writer  and  thinker, 
cleverly  suggesting  his  superior  and  impatient 
attitude  towards  our  social  follies.  And  in  the  easy 
attitude  of  the  portrait  of  Mr  W.  H.  Hudson,  with 
its  fine  imaginative  seriousness,  we  can  see  with  Mr 
Rothenstein  one  of  the  deepest  intelligences  of  our 
time. 

The  note  of  realism  in  these  drawings  is  always 
coloured  by  the  personal  view  of  the  artist.  There 
is  a  reverence  in  his  attitude,  a  kind  of  critical  hero- 
worship,  which  not  only  sees  but  reveals.     But  the 

196 


WILL    ROTHENSTEIN 

personality  of  the  draughtsman  never  forces  itself 
upon  one;  rather  does  it  take  one  by  the  hand 
and  place  one  in  the  same  point  of  vantage  as  that 
occupied  by  the  artist.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  an 
invitation  to  look  in  such  a  way ;  an  unobtrusive 
hint  as  to  position  and  light. 

1908 


197 


A  NOTE   ON   DANDIES 

A  DANDY  is  an  artist  whose  media  are  him- 
self and  his  own  personal  appearance.  The 
use  of  such  materials  has  laid  him  open 
to  the  contempt  of  sedate  and  uniform  ages,  but 
his  claims  to  existence  are  as  justifiable  as  those  of 
any  other  artist.  There  seems  to  be  some  irritability 
in  those  who  dislike  him  because  he  shamelessly 
exploits  himself  in  his  art,  but  surely  he  shares  the 
distinction  with  all  artists.  Every  artist  expresses 
himself  in  his  art,  so  does  the  Dandy,  but  he  admits 
it.  Perhaps  the  opponents  of  dandyism  feel,  un- 
consciously, that  man  is  too  insignificant  and 
ephemeral  a  material  for  the  purposes  of  art,  and 
they  may  be  right,  but  I  very  much  doubt  it.  We 
are  here  only  for  a  very  brief  while,  to  be  sure,  but 
is  that  any  reason  why  we  should  not  act  our  little 
parts  during  the  small  period  we  are  upon  the  stage 
as  splendidly  as  possible  ?  It  is  the  tragedy  and 
not  the  fault  of  dandyism  that  it  is  brief,  but  the 
dandy  shares  the  brevity  of  his  art  with  the  actor, 
the  singer,  the  musical  performer,  the  dancer,  and 
the  orator. 

The  art  of  the  Dandy  is  the  art  of  putting  forward 
the  best  personal  appearance,  of  expressing  oneself 
in  one's  clothes,  in  one's  manners,  in  one's   talk ; 

198 


A   NOTE    ON   DANDIES 

it  is,  in  short,  the  faculty  of  being  able  to  become, 
in  the  phrase  used  by  Mr  Arthur  Symons  to  describe 
Oscar  Wilde,  an  artist  in  attitudes.  Clothes  are  only 
the  outer  envelope  of  dandyism ;  the  real  Dandy 
begins  within,  his  dandyism  is  the  result  of  an 
attitude  of  mind,  a  conviction  that  man  is,  as  the 
poets  have  often  hinted,  a  creature  of  splendour  and 
flame,  and  a  desire  to  act  accordingly.  It  is,  like 
town  planning,  an  eminently  social  art,  and  should 
be  honoured  and  revered  as  such.  Your  true 
Dandy  looks  upon  his  personality  as  a  movement  in 
the  pageant  of  life,  to  be  planned  and  arranged  as 
carefully  as  a  city  in  Utopia.  He  is,  indeed,  Utopia 
become  man  ;  his  is  a  man  in  excelsis,  man  glorified 
and  peacocked  into  something  as  beautiful  as  a 
sea-shell,  as  light,  as  delicate,  and  as  sufficient  as  a 
feather.  Which  all  amounts  to  one  thing,  and  that 
one  thing  is  that  the  Dandy  above  all  men  is  the 
one  most  proud  of  being  man. 

He  must  not,  however,  be  confused  with  the 
mere  creature  of  fashion ;  such  poor  fellows  are  not 
Dandies  at  all.  The  Dandy  proper  is  beyond 
fashion :  but  in  a  fashionable  throng  he  never 
looks  out  of  place ;  that  is  because  he  is  the  in- 
dividualist and  not  the  anarchist  of  dress.  Slaves 
of  fashion  are  but  parrots,  they  dress  by  rote. 
Women  have  been  the  greatest  offenders,  but  who 
ever  heard  of  a  woman  dandy  ?  The  very  thought 
is  ridiculous.  Women  are  far  too  earnest,  far  too 
rational,  to  break  the  laws  imposed  by  custom.  I 
say    '  are,"  but  should,  remembering  the  militant 

199 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

feminism  of  to-day,  say  have  been,  for  women  are 
changing ;  and,  now  I  come  to  think  of  it,  I  have 
noticed  a  certain  new  and  individual  quality  about 
the  gowns  of  those  women  who  form  the  vanguard 
of  the  revolt.  Is  this  the  beginning  of  female 
dandyism  ? 

It  has  often  happened  that  the  fop  has  been 
mistaken  for  the  Dandy.  One  should  be  careful 
of  such  pitfalls.  Fops  and  Dandies  are  only  super- 
ficially allied.  The  Dandy,  as  I  have  hinted, 
begins  from  within,  his  external  splendour  is  the 
consummation  of  some  inward  glow,  of  that  intense 
need  of  personal  expression  for  the  sake  of  expression, 
which  impels  other  artists  to  recreate  themselves 
in  music,  in  painting,  in  poetry.  He  dreams  only  in 
terms  of  himself  and  those  things  which  are  most 
intimately  associated  with  himself.  The  glory  of  the 
fop,  if  such  it  be,  is  extraneous,  superimposed.  It 
has  been  provoked  from  without,  bought  at  a  shop 
at  the  dictation  of  a  salesman,  it  is  bespoke  dandyism, 
spurious  and  insufferable;  and  I  imagine  most 
people  who  denounce  Dandies  are  really  denouncing 
fops.     Anyhow,  I  will  be  generous  and  think  so. 

At  the  same  time  I  have  a  very  promising  sus- 
picion that  there  is  an  honest  objection  to  dandyism 
among  the  great  majority  of  people.  The  Dandy, 
you  observe,  is  an  individual,  and  the  crowd  has 
resented  individuality  ever  since  Dionysos  last 
appeared — and  before.  Perhaps  the  crowd  is  right. 
I  leave  the  question  open.  The  individual  may 
absorb  too  much  of   life  and  his  persecution  is  a 

200 


A   NOTE   ON    DANDIES 

kind  of  supertax  on  the  unearned  increment  of 
personality.  Be  it  so  or  not,  I  shall  not  strive  to 
reduce  so  elegant  a  theme  to  economics,  only  the 
fact  noted  above  must  be  remembered  in  all  con- 
siderations of  the  Dandy. 

But  such  persecution  as  the  individual  has  suffered 
in  the  past  has,  perhaps,  not  been  entirely  the 
expression  of  resentment  against  individuality  as 
such.  A  great  deal  of  it  has,  I  feel  sure,  been  due 
to  the  average  man's  traditional  incapacity  to 
weather  variations  in  his  surroundings  and  his  habits. 
He  gets  into  a  groove,  as  we  say,  that  is  the  preroga- 
tive of  the  average  man,  and  so  long  as  his  grooves 
are  inoffensive  no  one  should  gainsay  him.  The 
Dandy  would  never  do  so ;  he  is  not  out  to  teach 
or  even  to  correct — the  simple  and  effective  act 
of  being  is  all  in  all  to  him.  He  requires  his  stage 
and  audience,  of  course,  but  he  asks  not  the  flattery 
of  imitation,  but  of  admiration,  and  not  always 
that ;  the  quality  of  what  is  said  affects  him  very 
little,  enough  for  him  that  he  is  noticed. 

Now  the  man  in  the  groove  does  not  like  such  an 
attitude  towards  life.  Life  is  real,  life  is. earnest, 
says  he,  therefore  let  us  get  about  our  business. 
And  so  we  should,  if  we  feel  that  way.  But  what 
if  we  don't  ?  Ay,  there's  the  rub !  For  if  our 
souls  promote  us  to  attitudinise  in  rare  and  distinct 
apparel,  to  discourse  elegantly  of  things  that  hardly 
matter,  surrounded  by  all  the  paraphernalia  of  whim 
and  fancy,  who  shall  say  we  are  not  as  much  in 
earnest  as  those  who  are  content  to  be  serious  about 

201 


ROMANCE  AND   REALITY 

serious  things  ?  So  might  the  Dandy  argue,  and  he 
would  be  right. 

Such  a  life,  it  might  be  reasoned,  is  open  to  grave 
moral  temptations,  and  the  argument  might  be 
substantiated  by  many  apt  examples.  The  Dandies 
of  the  Restoration,  for  instance,  had  not  the  nicest 
of  moral  habits.  Sedley,  Dorset,  Buckingham,  John 
Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester  are  shocking  even  as 
historical  associates.  Bath,  in  the  great  days  of 
Beau  Nash,  was  not  above  reproach,  as  we  know. 
And  both  Brummell  and  D'Orsay  would  be  seriously 
discounted  by  an  ethical  society. 

But  such  lapses  from  the  straight  paths  of  moral 
rectitude  are  not,  after  all,  the  outcome  of  dandyism. 
The  Dandy  has  too  often  been  mixed  up  with  the 
rake  and  the  cad,  and  I  must  admit  there  have  been 
very  good  reasons  for  doing  so.  But  there  are  rakes 
and  cads  who  are  not  Dandies,  just  as  there  are 
Dandies  who  are  not  rakes  and  cads. 

Barbey  D'Aurevilly,  a  Dandy  himself,  as  well  as 
a  philosopher  and  historian  of  Dandies,  has  thrown 
the  light  of  his  own  genius  upon  the  question  of 
dandyism  and  morals,  and,  speaking  as  he  does  from 
the  inside,  as  one  having  authority,  we  must  hear  him. 
"  Dandyism,"  he  says,  "  while  still  respecting  the 
conventionalities,  plays  with  them.  While  admitting 
their  power,  it  suffers  from  and  revenges  itself 
upon  them,  and  pleads  them  as  an  excuse  against 
themselves ;  dominates  and  is  dominated  by  them 
in  turn.  To  play  this  twofold  and  changing  game 
requires  complete  control  of  all  the  suppleness  which 

202 


A  NOTE   ON   DANDIES 

goes  to  the  making  of  elegance,  in  the  same  way  as 
by  their  union  all  shades  of  the  prism  go  to  the  making 
of  the  opal.  This  Brummell  possessed.  Heaven- 
born  elegance  was  his,  such  as  social  trammels  often 
spoil,  and  he  was  thus  able  to  supply  the  capricious 
wants  of  a  society  bored  and  too  severely  bent  under 
the  strict  laws  of  decorum.  He  proved  that  truth 
which  matter-of-fact  people  always  forgot,  namely, 
if  fancy's  wings  are  clipped,  they  will  grow  half  as 
long  again.  His  was  that  charming  familiarity  which 
touches  everything  and  profanes  nothing." 

Let  us  not  then  rush  into  the  error  which  supposes 
dandyism  to  be  a  vicious  and  an  unnecessary  thing. 
Dandyism  is  an  expression  of  social  life  ;  it  is  social 
life,  in  fact,  at  white  heat,  the  union  of  all  the  shades 
which  go  to  the  making  of  the  opal.  But  although 
the  Dandy  of  history  is  generally  a  person  of  means 
and  elegance,  even  though  his  means  have  occasional 
and  tiresome  aberrations  and  estrangements,  there 
is  no  real  reason  why  the  Dandy  should  have  either 
means  or  be  elegant  in  the  luxurious  sense.  Elegant 
he  will  always  be  in  the  eternal  sense,  even  though  he 
be  threadbare,  for  his  dandyism  is  from  within. 

We  have  all  known  those  tattered  beaux  on  the 
fringe  of  comfortable  life ;  real  Dandies  they,  who 
contrive  to  be  elegant  on  clothes  a  decade  old,  and 
who  dine  off  a  chop  and  porter  with  all  the  distinction 
of  a  Brummell  at  the  table  of  Alvanley's  fat  friend, 
the  royal  Dandy,  George  IV.  Such  Dandies,  although 
unwritten  and  unsung,  are  in  the  great  tradition, 
eternal  devotees  of  the  art  of  attitude  and  personality. 

203 


Note. — The  essays  in  this  volume  have  already  appeared 
either  in  Black  and  White,  The  Bookman,  The  Booklover's 
Magazine,  The  Beau,  The  Idler,  The  New  Age,  The  Morning 
Leader,  The  Daily  Dispatch,  The  Yorkshire  Weekly  Post 
The  Sheffield  Telegraph,  The  Woman  Worker,  The  Odd 
Volume,  or  The  Tramp,  but  they  have  been  revised  and 
rewritten,  some  becoming  entirely  new  essays  in  the  process. 
I  am  indebted  to  the  editors  of  the  aforementioned  journals 
for  permission  to  reprint  them. 

The  studies  in  the  section  called  "  Introductions,"  dealing  in 
the  main  with  living  artists,  have  been  written  during  the  last 
five  years,  and  although  the  writers  have  added  to  their  works 
since  these  essays  were  written  I  have  not  thought  it  necessary 
to  alter  their  original  form  ;  but  I  have  placed  the  date  of 
composition  at  the  end  of  each  study  for  the  guidance  of  the 
reader. 

H.J. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angeles 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


QgCHARGE-URL 

uW    JAN  2  4  979 


D 


MM 


EB  1219$1 


jun 


u. 


Form  L9-100m-9,'52(A3105)444 


n^^  ™E  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CACIPORNIA 
LOS  ANGELES 


PR  Jacks on  - 

6019       Romance  and 
Jl^2r     reality. 


3  1158  00424  1765 


jA\s 


pp 
eoi9 

Jl32r 


uci^.lm 


AA 


in!iIONAL  L 


'BRARy 


°00  380 


ACUITY 


856 


* 


